Travelogue, Part the Third: Bath

[lily_handmaiden]

by inishmaan. See how good I am, giving credit and everything?

This is the concluding chapter of my account of my trip to England.

For my last stop, I went to the city of Bath with Whitney, Tiffany, and Jenaba (celtic_songster). We took the train from Stratford, which was... adventurous. Let's just say, it's not easy getting four people and all of their luggage through three train stops to a final destination. And then once we got to that destination, we lugged our luggage all the way across central Bath, lost a good deal of the way. At one point I had to stop and exclaim to the heavens, "WHY ARE THERE NO F***ING STREET SIGNS IN THIS F***ING COUNTRY?" But we did at last figure out where we were, and shortly after that figured out how to get to our B&B. 

After we had stowed our luggage and laid on our beds drenched in sweat for a while, burning off the exhaustion, we were able to go out and actually appreciate the beaty of the city, and Bath is beautiful. It was about 8:30 or 9 by this time, so we cast about for someplace to stop and eat that was not too smoky and not too expensive and close by. We finally settled on a groovy European Pizza Hut, where we had pizza topped with grilled chicken and goat cheese, had quesadilla apetizers that were stuffed with pepperoni, and had delicious ice cream cake for dessert. It was pretty awesome. As in the old days, the entire population of Bath seemed that night to be entirely made up of old people and teenagers. The teenagers loved hanging out at the Groovy Pizza Hut.

The next day we boarded a double-decker bus and rode on the top in the rain, for which we blame Jenaba. We went to the Jane Austen Centre, which was really cool, at least for me-- they had costumes from the new ITV Persuasion and the '99 Mansfield Park, and they had cool Regency and Georgian Stuff, and they had one of Jane Austen's letters to Cassandra... yeah, I'm a dork. I could have bought that whole gift shop. By the time we came out of the Centre, it had cleared up and turned into a lovely day. We next went to the Roman Baths, which were so cool. It was just unbelievable how long they had been there-- that that place had been sacred since before the Romans came to Britain. If there was a real basis for King Arthur, he probably came there-- the Battle of Badon Hill was probably in the surrounding area. And right next door was Bath Abbey, which was very pretty from the outside-- we didn't go in because we didn't have that much money left and we decided we didn't want to pay. Then we went to the Assembly Rooms and Museum of Costume. The Assembly Room itself-- the Ball Room, anyway, was closed for renovations, but the Octagon Room and the Tea Room were open, and I was in heaven. Because Jane Austen hung out there. Her fictional characters did, too. And it was gorgeous, of course. The Costume Museum was also really cool, and I we got to try on corsets and hoop skirts again-- I found a corset that would make my waist go as small as it could actually go, so that was fun. 

After that we just walked around Bath. We went to the Royal Crescent, and we walked on the Gravel Walk, and down Milsom Street, and Union Street, and the Circus. I will say again, though I can't say enough, that Bath is so beautiful, especially places like the Circus and the Crescent. And these were places I've read about a lot, and matters of fictional import took place on them, so that was just such fun. In the words of Rudyard Kipling in his story "The Janeites," "If you’d been initiated then,” he says, “you’d ha’ felt your flat feet tingle every time you walked over those sacred pavin’-stones."

We also went to Victoria Park, which has one of the coolest playgrounds I've ever seen. The next day we did more walking around and shopping. We rode around on the double-decker bus-- actually we rode around in circles a couple of time because the bus wouldn't stop where we wanted, even though Tiffany kept pressing the button, and we were pretty sure we were going to have to ride it for eternity. Actually, the audio tour on the bus is pretty amusing. From the lady on the recording, we learned about Prince Frederick of Wales, who got dead from tennis ball, and about how the most dangerous place in town is the beginners' golf course, and about how "Jane Austen came to bath in 1801, and has been good for tourism ever since." We laughed really hard right there and nobody else did... oh, well. We got it. We also saw Laura Place and Pulteney Bridge that day, plus lots of great shops.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that our B&B room was haunted, because when I was half-awake the night before we left, I kept hearing the floor creak over and over in the same place like somebody was pacing over it, but we were all in bed. That would also maybe explain why our bathroom kept smelling like smoke. I told Jenaba this in the morning, and she was very glad I had not told her beforehand.

We caught an exceptionally early train out of Bath, dealt with all of the horrible luggage transfers again, and made it to Heathrow before anyone in our group, so HA! Well done us. I would like to take this opportunity to say to my travel companions that I love you guys and thank you for roaming England with me. It was wonderful.

Can I go back now?