On day 8 we visited Bath and explored the Jane Austen Centre, The Circus, The Crescent, the Fashion Museum, and the Roman Baths.
I love Bath!!!! If you are lover of all things Jane Austen, archicture (especially Georgian buildings), pretty English towns, fashion, and you find yourself in England, you MUST visit Bath. 95% of the town's architecture is in the Georgian style so it appears to be frozen in time...which is a pretty cool experience. Bath is spectacular and I wish we had spent more time there. However, we made the most of the time we had and visited a ton of sights!
First we headed to the Jane Austen Centre, as you do when you and your best friend are huge Jane Austen fans and are visiting Bath (beware you will be walking uphill from the train station). There was a man in Regency period clothing outside who welcomed us inside. It turns out all of the employees wear period clothing. Fantastic!!
It was lunch time when we arrived so we decided to have tea upstairs in the Regency Room (the Centre's restaurant) before we toured the museum. Tea was quiet, leasurely, and so fun!! I ordered Tea with Mr. Darcy, my friend ordered Tea with the Austens, and we both had the Jane Austen tea blend (seriously, what other flavor are you going to try when you are visiting the Jane Austen Centre? lol).
The Jane Austen tea blend was insanely good! It was so good that after we returned to Oklahoma I ordered some online (because for some reason it didn't occur to me to buy some from the gift shop lol). The food was also spectacular! Out of all of the teas we tried in England, this was by far the tastiest and my favorite. I can see why they have won so many awards for their tea room.
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| A tower of tastiness |
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| Clotted cream and strawberry jam goodness! |
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| Delightful desserts. Victoria sponge cake is officially my friend's new favorite cake. |
After lunch we explored the Centre. The tour began with a 20 minute introduction by our tour guide. He explained Jane Austen's life, her time in Bath, where she traveled and lived in England, and how here travels influenced her writings.
After the introduction, you explore the rest of the museum on your own. There is a short film, typical exhibition galleries, a space where you can learn how to write with a quill and ink, and a place to dress up in "period clothing". I use quotations because to me the clothing looked more like Little House on the Prairie than Pride & Prejudice, but we tried it out anyway, because when in Rome.
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| Learning to write with a quill and ink. |
The last room in the Centre had photos from films depicting Jane Austen's life and novels. Many of the actors from the films visited the Centre and/or wrote notes to the Centre which were framed and on exhibit. After you are done touring the facility, you go into the extremely tiny gift shop and you can purchase all of the Jane Austen memorabilia until your heart's content :) .
The Centre was under construction while we were visiting so a few of the galleries were closed to the public, but the Centre gave us a discounted ticket rate which was nice of them. Also, the construction could also be the reason the gift shop space was tiny as well.
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| Note from Anne Hathaway while she was filming Becoming Jane. |
Next we visited the Royal Circus and the Royal Crescent. The Circle is a complete circle and the Crescent is a half circle of Georgian townhouses. The architecture is pretty cool and they have appeared in several films.
Then we went to the Fashion Museum which is housed in the old Assembly Rooms, where public dances were held when Jane Austen lived in Bath. The Fashion Museum was one of the few places we visited during our trip that exceeded my expectations. The Museum is magnificent!! If you think you might have the slightest interest in fashion, textiles, or history VISIT THE FASHION MUSEUM!!!!
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Fashion Museum on the right.
One of the drawbacks of having Georgian architecture throughout the whole town is that EVERY building looks similar lol. |
The Museum has beautiful examples of clothing from the 1700s to present day on exhibit. Similar to the Jane Austen Centre, there is a space where you can play dress up, but the clothing options were much nicer.
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| Georgian period garmets |
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| The tiny dress in the front of the case is a surviving mock-up of what a dress designer would have the client approve/make edits to before creating the real dress. |
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| Regency period garmets |
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| Cool kilt! |
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| Gloves galore! |
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| Beautiful dress. Creepy 1980s mannequin. |
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| Playing dress up at the Fashion Museum |
Towards the end of the gallery spaces, there are visible storage spaces where you can see how the Museum archivally houses its collection as well as undergarments, shoes, and other accessories on view.
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| Visible storage |
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| Undergarments |
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| Historic embroidery thread...be still my heart. |
After the Fashion Museum, we tried to visit Bath Abbey, but it had already closed for the day :( . But we took some pretty pictures and were serenaded by a local :) .
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| View of Bath Abbey from the Fashion Museum area of town. |
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| Bath Abbey |
Our final stop of the day was to visit the Roman Baths (which I'm pretty sure is required if you ever visit Bath). Apparently the site was a bath and a temple to Minerva, which was surprising, strange, and ironic that it is now next-door to the Abbey.
Apparently, people could write curses for their enemies and give them to the temple priests. They had some on view in the galleries...creepy.
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| Creepy curses |
There are several exhibition spaces to explore before you enter the actual bath portion. There are also a few spaces of the Roman bath experience available to view such as where the water comes in the different rooms along with descriptions of what people did in each room.
Also, you can taste the water from a filtered drinking fountain. The water wasn't horrible, but it wasn't tasty. It had a distinctive metallic taste.
The main bathing area is wonderfully preserved. It is still watertight thanks to its lead lining, which is also why people are not allowed to touch the water in that area. There are even "Romans" walking around and you can ask them questions.
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| Romans at the Roman Bath |
After we finished exploring the Baths, we had dinner at the Jazz Cafe, which was tasty and had a pretty view. Then we walked back to the train station and made our way home.
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| Bath Train Station |
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| Even the English love a Friends reference! |
Bath was definitely my favorite day trip from London and I can't recommend it highly enough. If you are even slightly interested VISIT BATH!! You won't be disappointed :)
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