Every building in the city was built of the same yellow stone quarried from the same local quarry, giving the town an architecturally harmonious look. Of course, the combination was perfect with the zeitgeist of Georgian England. A city of the Roman Empire being rebuilt at a time when Britain fancied itself as the new Empire, destined to bring civilization to the furthest corners of the globe.

Miracle Bath salts
The famous Bath waters come from a fault in the underlying rocks that allows water from deep under the earth's crust to rise to the surface. Super-heated in the bowels of the earth, it comes bubbling above ground, laden with minerals.

A lake of steaming water with healing powers was seen as a supernatural portent by the ancient Britons, and they dedicated it to their goddess Sulis. When the Romans arrived to claim the land for themselves, they, being colonisers by assimilation, blended the 'native' goddess with their own goddess of wisdom and healing, thus producing Sulis Minerva. The Romans named their new city "Aquae Sulis".

A must-see on any trip is obviously to pay a visit to the Roman baths themselves. After paying the hefty entry fee we each got an audio guide, which is like a long thin cellphone where you dial in the number of the exhibit and get a commentary on each art of the museum in your own language.

Walking around the main pool with its milky green water was like stepping 2000 years back in time, and a relief from the claustrophobic and stuffy excavation area. The waters of the baths do have some healing powers, and the warm waters must have provided relief to Roman rheumatism during the long British winters!

Apparently, the natural salts dissolved in the water are good for the skin and have a mildly laxative effect, which would have been appreciated by any Roman that had attended too many orgies and not enough visits to the "lavatorium"!

Bath with a friend
But the ancient Roman bath was more than a place to scrub up. It was also an integral part of the social structure of Roman Britain ? a place to "network" and share news of the day. Likewise in Victorian times, the genteel folk came here to see and to be seen, to do a bit of discreet gambling and pursue the occasional love affair. The Pulteney Bridge was inspired by Florence's Ponte Vecchio, being flanked by shops on both sides. Here, one can imagine the characters from a Bronte novel strolling demurely under their bonnets and parasols.

Of course if you could afford a piece of property in Bath you had really arrived in genteel society. Even today a one bedroom flat can set you back nearly #500 000. Take a stroll up through the town to the famous Royal Crescent where a half-circle of Georgian three-storey houses overlook a very exclusive private park. On the day we visited, the stage and grandstand were being erected for the "Three Tenors" concert the following week. The lucky (read wealthy) residents of the Royal Crescent will be getting Pavarotti en-suite, and Pavarotti will finally get paid for singing in the Bath?