I’ve become absolutely rubbish at putting up blog entries, so I thought I should try to play catch-up before I go off to Ireland next week. So here’s Bath, where I spent one wonderful Saturday a couple of weeks ago. I went with three lovely American exchange students, Paula, Allison and Ashley – all Austen fans, of course.
We headed off to the Victoria Coach Station at some obscenely early hour of the morning, clambering aboard our bus at the last minute. After a three-hour journey, we arrived in Bath and found ourselves at the start of a gorgeous sunny day.
Having sorted out our priorities in advance, our first stop was the Jane Austen Museum on Gay Street, where the great author lived – and loathed Bath – at one stage of her life. We all posed with Jane and then entered the cramped little exhibition inside.
There was some fascinating stuff in there. And the obligatory photos of Colin Firth-Darcy. I left with an ‘I [heart] Mr Darcy' bag.
We then made our way over to the beautiful Royal Crescent. It was luscious and green and flecked all over with sunbathers.
There was even a hot air balloon. Perfect photo opportunity.
Afterwards we hurried down to the town centre for a spot of tea and scones. The scones were really dry and kind of awful, but apparently they were similar enough to an American-style biscuit to please my travel companions. We all downed an incredible amount of tea. Personally, I’m not yet converted to milky tea, but I gave it my best shot.
Next we walked the short distance to the Bath Abbey, a beautiful building next to the Roman baths. Inside we found an organ recital! What amazing luck.
After a great impromptu concert, we left and found ourselves a pub, and a tipsy, talkative nuisance of a middle-aged admirer. I tried the local cider: ginger flavoured, and horrible. The others were staying overnight, but alas, I had to leave – but what a fantastic day! I’m pretty desperate to go back and explore more of the pokey little shops. Such a perfect holiday spot.
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