Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Somerset - Day 14

Have to drop the renter back at Marksbury, just out of Bath, so we have a Bristol, Bath and Avon day. Trev takes us on from the Europcar dropoff, out to the Avonmouth area and we see the Second Severn Crossing bridge from Bristol to Wales - very graceful, and with surprisingly little development along the Severn Estuary edge - it is, after all, a water view. On to Bristol centre via Whiteladies road - a coffee-up and then on to Bath. We skirt around the top of Bath and, consulting a local map, discover that the famed Crescent is just three streets down.

The Crescent, while undeniably magnificent, is rather too severely formal for my tastes, but the Circus, a circular (of course) road just hard by, is charming and more intimate in its scale of buildings. The Bath stone is just glowing in this afternoon sun, and the weather is once again brilliant for this time of year. We go back through Bradford-on-Avon, the Kennet and Avon canal, and on through the lanes to Wincanton. A cruisy, magnificent day. Photos of ancient ancestors that night: we have scanned a bunch for Trev and go through these. The Peter Lehmann shiraz goes down, and we retire tired but happy. With cats, who have discovered our various possum/merino clothing pieces, and won't be moved from on them.

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