Gottfried Travel Adventures

 October 20 Bath is an interesting city that has an incredible history. According to our guide, a man with leprosy was healed by rolling in the hot mud that he saw had a similar effect on pigs that he was tending. He told the story and others came, including the Romans in about 50 AD. They engineered healing baths here by the third century and the city has grown from that. The Romans had a huge complex here which has been excavated and there is a great museum which explains it and displays many artifacts.  In 675, a convent was begun, in 1060s, a Norman church was built, then the Tudors took over in the 1500s, then Henry VIII closed the Abbey and the church went into disrepair. It is an interesting history and there is a great website  https://www.bathabbey.org/visiting/history/   Our guide took us all around the city and explained its progress through 3 men. Beau Nash, saw use for new attractions for visitors to spend their money while in Bath. Another, Ralph Allen, bought all of the

 October 19 Today we had a nice breakfast in Chipping Norton after packing up the car. From there, we went to Brampton, the Downton Village in the series. It was hard to recognize other than the church, but it is mapped out for visitors.  Cappuccino at breakfast  Miles and miles of English countryside  The flower guild was hard at work inside the Downton Abbey church, really called St Mary’s Inside the church where weddings, baptisms etc were filmed St Mary’s altar The iconic view  Mrs Crawleys house (I just turned from taking the previous picture The Grantham Arms From Brampton, we headed to Castle Combe. A town that o had read about as the most picturesque village in England.  Inside St Mary’s church in Brampton Funny but real sign in Castle Combe We had a wine and beer in Castle Combe but then headed onto Bath. There we toured the Roman Bath, an archaeological site from around 70 AD. Bath Roman bath One of the 2000+ year old Roman statues overlooking the Roman Baths. This is Hadrian

 October 18 This morning we headed back to Stow-on-the-Wild and found a nice coffee shop for a small breakfast. David is getting exhausted by the pace we’re keeping, but he is an excellent driver. I’m just trying to see a lot while we’re here. We walked around the town and saw the st Edwards church and their yew tree door and we did some shopping, No one was near to take our picture so we decided to try to take two and photo shop us together! 😆 From here we were driving towards Broadway, but missed a roundabout exit and ended up finding the Donnington Brewey! A happy accident for sure!  Coronation Amber ale David’s 8-pack of amber ale brewed for the coronation of King Charles III The brewer equipment still in use today since 1865 Roger and the output from the brewing process that the farm. Owns “go mad for!” Beautiful trout on the spring fed water adjacent to the brewery  This one could be a painting! The water wheel that provides power to the brewery or spring water to the beer!? Spr