Matt & I spent a recent Monday bank holiday in Bath, which Brits apparently pronounce Baaah-th, but I feel weird and pretentious when I say anything other than Bath, but I digress. It’s a pretty long train ride to Bath from Didcot, which is the nearest major train station to us and is in itself a 30+ minute bus ride, so, like all of our day trips, we started early on a 3ish hour commute, but, like all of our day trips it was totally worth it. Bath is a Georgian city that became big and important and rich when a leporous shepherd discovered that his leporous pigs were being healed after bathing in the local river, and then he started bathing in the river and his leporousy improved? was cured? I don’t know, but history happened and then there you go, every started coming to ‘take the waters.’ Matt had already day tripped to Bath before my arrival, but as I wanted to go for Austen and he is allergic to spending an entire weekend without a major excursion from our house, off we went. The Georgian city part references a particular style of architecture and Bath has maintained that style rather strictly, which has allowed the entire city to qualify for some sort of English/world heritage site, which is pretty impressive, considering that means all new construction has to at least appear period appropriate. Which is probably why I’ve seen their grocery store in an Austen adaptation… Just kidding. Probably.
Our first stop was for food, which turned out to be every kind of breakfast food possible stacked into a sandwich, I think it was called ‘And then your arteries gave up and you died’. But, it was delicious and cheap and kept us from having to spend real money on meals out. This is our touristing goal, to eat as little as possible for any given meal/snack time, because eating out is really pricy here. So, we do a lot of little half-meals on these trips, just enough to keep us in walking energy. We ate said heart-stopper in Queen Square Park, across the street on one side from one of the homes Jane Austen resided in and across on the other side from the Jane Austen Centre, which was our second stop. The Jane Austen Centre is more historical/educational facility than museum, it doesn’t necessarily have much of hers personally, but plenty of exhibits and articles about her life and times. Plus, the staff is all in costume. I WANT THIS JOB, those dresses are fantastic! Although, I hate a bonnet. Anyway, our tour guide gave us an introduction to her family and her relationship to Bath and then directed us to the rest of the house which all just lovely walk through- look at stuff. We stopped by an exhibit on the history and importance of tea at time: it used to be kept under lock and key and would be used up to three times (family, servants, then the poor) as it was such an expensive and precious commodity. To which I say, WHAAA??? Seriously? We dropped by the dress up area where Matt gamely dressed up in the vest and jacket and cravat, though, obviously neither of us knows how to tie a cravat, so it was used more in a scarf like capacity… He also rocked the top hat and walking stick, my own personal literary hero. In that capacity, he also bought me the most amazing souvenir ever. It’s a small bust of Austen and will sit on every desk I ever accessorize for the rest of forever, I’m so excited about it. Next in the Austen house was writing a note with ink and quill, which was easier than I expected, and every bit as messy. The ink was red and it appeared as though I was actively bleeding from my middle finger for the rest of the day. It freaked Matt out once and myself, at least three times. Last stop in the Centre was to visit the life size wax figure of Jane herself. Designed by a forensic archaeologist or something, it is based on a couple of existing portraits and any surviving accounts of Jane Austen’s appearance. It was honestly a little weird, she has cleavage and freckles and that wax model skin that always kind of creeps me out, but it was also pretty cool. They made her a bit beaky, much like the only image they’ve got of her mom, which is a silhouette with what can only be deemed a witch’s schnoz. It’s a nice detail.
Here’s the thing about taking day trips without a vehicle, we’re limited in how long we can leave the dogs home alone. Too many hours in the crate goes from unfortunate and unavoidable to cruel REALLY quickly. So, after the Austen Centre we did have a ton of time left. Matt, taking his role of gallant hero to heart, deferred to me again and we briefly peaked in the Pump Room, which is in the same complex/building as the Roman Baths and next door to Bath Abbey. It’s also a major featured setting in Austen when the characters spend anytime in Bath. It’s basically a giant room that they now use as a restaurant cafe where the cheap tea service is like £30, so all we did was peak in around the edges. We then strolled through Bath Abbey which is as lushly decorated as I’ve come to expect of these gothic English churches, and decided to spend what time we had left taking the hop-on, hop-off bus tours that are all over the place here. We rolled through the city route, which featured another couple of Austen highlights, as well as most of the famous spots, like the glorified terrace houses of Royal Crescent and the Fashion Museum and Circus. We then took the city view tour, which promised panoramic views of the whole valley and city from the surrounding hill drives. To this, I call bullshit. Most of the country roads here are small and windy and completely surrounded by foliage, they’re lovely in themselves, but they don’t offer much view beyond the trees around them, so we saw almost nothing of the countryside, we just got really cold and saw where the last fatal duel in England was fought. We did see a pint sized version of the large abbey we had already seen, which was pretty neat, but on the whole the tour didn’t offer much and I’m glad we didn’t have to pay extra for it. The whole hop-on, hop-off concept is actually pretty neat, especially since all tickets last two days, so if you’re visiting a place for the weekend, you really can use them to hit the major hotspots.
After the tour was the long commute home which was a little dicey as the train was slammed full and we had to ride in a couple of backwards facing seats for the first leg of it – not surprisingly, I of the ALWAYS carsick, do not do well in backward facing seats, imagine that. 🙁 Great trip on the whole, after the nausea subsided, and now I have Jane Austen in 3-D form to keep me company forever!
Observations: We saw a sign for a buffet on the way to Bath, the tag line was Eat as Much as you like, instead of All you can eat. I really love the differences there.
More to come,
– alaina
