Bath is a World Heritage city in Somerset, England famous for many things related to its Roman history including its  Roman baths which are fed by three hot springs.   The city was featured in novels by Jane Austen.  Among these are the Royal Crescent apartments dating from 1767, and the Assembly Rooms featured in Austen's novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. It is situated 99 miles  west of Central London and 13 miles south east of Bristol. The Cotswolds are nearby just to the north and the Bristol Channel is just to the west.

 

The Roman bath, perhaps the city's chief attraction, is worth a visit. The existence of the baths is one of the reasons Bath became a resort for the wealthy and why some of the most famous apartment complexes in the world, like the Circus and the aforementioned Royal Crescent are located there. Charles Dickens' Pickwick took the waters there, and on the occasion his man Sam Weller remarked that it had "a very strong flavour o' warm flat irons".  The original Roman bath has been restored and was added to in Victorian times.

 

The city sustained extensive damage in German bombings in WWII but has been expertly restored.  The town center has large pedestrian zones of streets bordered by stately brownstone buildings.  They are a pleasure to walk on .  You may pass Bath Abbey, the last gothic church built in England, dating from 1499, but built on earlier Anglo-Saxon and then Norman earlier structures.

 

And there are many parks (click parks and rec.) with flower gardens. The largest of these is the Queen Victoria Park which is just below the Royal Crescent Apartments.  The park provides a pretty good vantage point for taking a photo of the buildings, but they are so long from end to end that it is difficult to get the whole structure in the photo. There is a botanical garden within the park.

 

There also are several museums (click tourism and then museums on the Bath web site).  If you are interested in the dress of the Jane Austen and other eras, you will be enthralled by the Assembly Rooms Museum of Costume.  And if you are a fan of Jane Austen, there is also the Jane Austen Center. (There are links to both of these and other museums on the museum page)

 

After walking around this beautiful and stately city you may want to refresh yourself with tea in the Pump Room Restaurant (Bath web site, click on tourism and then on pump room), next to the Roman Bath,  which opened in 1795 and is purported to be just as it was then. 

Map (click on the city map 

on the Bath web site),