Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Day 2 in Bath

Day 9: More Bath

We had a 9am Jane Austen Festival tour "The 5 Crescents" at 9am today.  We hurried through breakfast which was delicious again and walked down to the Bath Tourist Information center where the tour met.  It was quite a hike!

On our tour there were several ladies dressed in period costume (love!) and all of us were interested in Jane Austen (me more than husband, obviously).  The guide led us up and up to the heights of Bath to Crescents most tourists don't see.  We passed by our B&B at one point, lol.  We saw the windows where Jane likely looked out of when she stayed with her aunt and uncle Leigh-Perrot.




 
We had a brief stop at St. Swithin's Church where Jane's parents were married and her dad is buried.  We had actually passed this church 2 or 3 times at night on the way to/from the Star Inn but it hadn't registered.  Was really glad to see it.





Reverend George Austen's tomb, 1827
A beautiful Janeite on our tour




Her costume was picture perfect
Rain clouds over the crescent

We hiked up through a park to another crescent then had a too-long stop for tea.  Afterwards, two more crescents before the rain (completely unexpected and for which we were not prepared!) came down.  We were enjoying the tour until this point but as the rain showed no sign of lessening, we bailed close to our B&B.




Husband really needed to do laundry so (once the rain ended) we made our way to the laundromat and started our loads.  We were hungry and the St. James's Cafe Deli was a few doors down.  Lunch was delicious!  Beer, champagne, quiche, salad, and an outstanding millionaire's shortbread for dessert.  Yummy!

Clothes clean, we headed back to the B&B to unload and decide what to do for the rest of our last day in Bath.


Millionaire's shortbread--delicious

Toilet hanging out in the courtyard-a late addition
One of the first curio shops

After perusing the guidebooks, we decided to go to the quirky Museum of Bath at Work, free with our National Trust pass.  This was a very nice surprise!  Because it was wasn't busy, the kind man who took out tickets gave us a great intro about the history of the museum.  It is based on the 1900's soda manufacturing shop of Mr. Bowler.  But my favorite part was the old timey shop with all the gadgets you can imagine.  It was time well-spent--we closed it down.










We meandered down to the Royal Crescent hotel for drinks.  We browsed a few shops on the way and made a reservation (at ?) for dinner later that night.  We really liked the garden area at the Royal Crescent and had a nice time sitting out there with our drinks.  The service was a little too laid back because we had to practically wave down a waiter to get another drink.  We enjoyed this break a lot.







I told husband we should go in the opposite direction from our normal, so we went RIGHT out the door of the Royal Crescent! :)  We were captivated by a motorcycle with multiple stickers from all over the world and chatted with the rider, from China, who was biking around the world.  We walked on the path by the Royal Crescent and chatted with a local lady out with her dogs.  We took pictures of the pretty flowers in the park.



We slowly made our way to dinner, which was enjoyable if not wonderful.  My beetroot risotto was not great but husband's beef was.




We decided against going to the Star for a nightcap and headed back to the B&B.  It was kind of an early night.  But a wonderful time was had, again, in Bath.

Takeaways:
1.  Be prepared for rain--no matter what the forecast says!
2.  This Janeite was thrilled with the Jane Austen Festival events and costumed participants
3.  Stop and smell the roses
4.  Being able to communicate with locals is one of the joys of travelling in England

Next:  We go to the Cotswolds

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