England-2011-bath

Bath Excursion, Friday-Sunday 1-3 April, 2011

Preparation

• Before Saturday morning you should read/skim the Wikipedia page about Bath (see below) to learn about the history of Bath and what's there.
• Look through the list of museums, sites, etc. (see below) and think about which ones you might want to visit.

Travel

Bath is located about 100 miles west of London, we'll be taking the train for this excursion.

Plan

When we get to Cambridge we'll split-up into groups based on which museums/sites/etc we plan on visiting. Lunch will be on your own and then we'll meet for dinner around 17:30. That should give us enough time to eat and make it back to the train station for our 20:15 ride back to London.

Bloggers

We will need two volunteers from the studio audience to take pictures and write-up/post a blog entry about this excursion. Get in touch if you are interested.

Science, Technology and Society

Probably the biggest, literally, thing related to science in or near Bath is Stonehenge (Wikipedia), the monument built some 4500 years ago to track celestial movements, by people that had no written language that we know of. There are tours which take approximately three hours leaving from central Bath on Saturday. This includes a tour through the local countryside (very bucolic) and drive-bys of other sites related to the people who made and used Stonehenge.

If anyone is interested in going on a tour (the cost of which would be covered by the program) then get in touch with Charlie RSN.

About Bath

Bath is a very old city, the charter was granted in 1590 and history of the city goes back to the time of the Romans (~AD 43) when it was established as a spa resort. There are many sites in and around Bath related to this history.

Remember that your cultural allowances are good in Bath too, just save your receipts and turn them in to Charlie to be reimbursed after the trip. If you want to keep the stub just photocopy it first and turn-in the photocopy for reimbursement.

• Bath's Wikipedia entry
• Places of interest in Bath (Wikipedia)

Museums

• Jane Austen Centre

Sites

• The Roman Baths (Wikipedia) - this is a must see
• Royal Crescent
• The Circus
• Kennet and Avon Canal
• Pulteney Bridge
• Bath Cider Festival? (Food, cider, music, etc. 11:00-16:00 Saturday)