Another of the bathing pools. The Great Bath is the biggest, obviously, but it was far from being the only one - there were baths specifically for the sick, and after Hadrian passed a law forbidding naked co-ed bathing, there were separate baths for men and women. (Yes, until Hadrian came along women and men bathed together naked, and even after the law was passed few obeyed it.)
A view of the Great Bath with Bath Abbey in the background. I bought a watercolor painting of this view while I was there.
An alcove where you got a massage, a manicure, a haircut...you name it, they did it. The Romans were a relatively clean people. They were known to bathe daily, and each bath was a ritualistic process that involved oils, cold water submerges and hot steam treatments, and scraping. Women even got their armpit hair plucked, ouch!
Janie told me to pose like I was going to fall in. So, of course, as I'm going for the pose...I start to fall in. This is the real deal, I had to leap awkwardly back to keep from landing face-first into a tub of grody algae water.
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