Day 17

Day 17 – Monday, 5^th August

08.30 Warwick to Bath We depart The Honiley Court Hotel after breakfast with a packed lunch and all our luggage and transfer to The Bath Youth Hostel stopping at Cadbury World in Birmingham en-route
10.00 Cadbury World
	We visit Cadbury World, the Cadbury factory in Birmingham, where we’ll be able to learn about the history of chocolate and pick up lots of free samples. There’s a guided tour of the chocolate making process with interactive displays. Of course, there’s a shop to spend your money in. There’s also a park outside to eat a picnic in and for a quick run about after eating all that chocolate!

15.00 Bath Walking Tour
	The group will split into two with a guide for each group for a walking tour of Bath. Very few cities can boast such a logical name as Bath. In the centre of this impressive city, natural hot springs gush to the surface, their medicinal effects known and used for almost 2000 years. Bath is also one of the prettiest towns in Britain with a unique architectural character and a vibrant cultural life. Quite rightly, Bath is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
	According to legend, Bath was established by Prince Bladud, the father of King Lear, who ended up shepherding swine after being expelled from court as a leper. He cured himself by imitating his pigs and rolling in the warm mud around the hot springs. A rather more reliable fact is that the Romans knew a good bath when they saw one, and built a fort here in the first century AD, calling the place Aquae Sulis. At its heart they built the bath complex, much of which has survived; visitors can stroll on the pavements beside the naturally steaming pools just as the Romans did.
Bath's golden age came during the 18th century, when the beautiful and fashionable flocked here to take the waters and enjoy the social side of spa life. They came to a town which was being transformed into a gracious neo-classical Palladian city built mainly of warm Bath stone and rising from Pulteney Bridge over the river Avon up the hillsides in a series of terraces and circuses (the most famous being the Royal Crescent). Their days revolved around visits to the Pump Room (medicinal) and the Old Assembly Rooms (social), where the ladies took refreshment in the Tea Room while the gentlemen gambled heavily in the Card Room, the two groups meeting up in the evening to dance in the Ball Room. Today the Pump Room is a restaurant where you can have lunch or tea accompanied by a trio playing classical music, and the old Assembly Rooms have been restored to their former glory and house the Museum of Costume. Bath attracted everyone who was anyone, and the list of residents and visitors reads like a Who's Who of notable British figures, from General Wolfe to Josiah Wedgwood, from George Friedrich Handel to Peter Gabriel, from David Livingstone to Jane Austen whose novels ‘Northanger Abbey’ and ‘Persuasion’ are set in Bath, giving a very real picture of 19th century life in this gracious city.

16.30 Visit to the Roman Baths We will visit the old Roman Baths for a tour.

18.00 Continue on to the Bath Youth Hostel for Evening Meal and Activities Back