Bath (Part 1): Jane Austen Centre and the Abbey

Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: I can’t stop loving you (Jim Reeeves)

Yesterday, my friend (let’s call her Mariam) and I went down to Bath for the Jane Austen Festival. I was quite excited since I’ve never been to Bath before … actually, the west of England remains quite unexplored by myself – I’m yet to make it to Wales and before going to Bath, the only place west I had been was the Cotswolds (great place go there!).

Anyway, yesterday there was terrible fog … so, we really didn’t see anything going towards Bath – there could have been spectacular views, but all I saw looming up in the distance were outlines of trees which I had mistakenly taken for dark clouds in the first instance (silly me!) … well, Bath was cold whilst the fog was there – and I listening to the weather news – as a good British resident should! – was told that it would be sunny and warm, and hence packed a really light jacket, therefore … very, very cold once I was in Bath (fog didn’t lift till about 1).

Jane Austen Centre and Roman Baths

Anyway, our first stop was the Jane Austen Centre … cost about £6.50 to get in (won’t say it was worth it) – they had a nice talk on the history of Jane Austen which was the most interesting piece, the Austen centre itself wasn’t entirely impressive, some regency clothes (mostly from movie sets) – a short 15 min film about where Jane Austen lived in Bath (she only lived there for 5 years) – and some old artifacts … pretty much things you could have gotten from a ‘real’ museum and some searching on the internet.

Oh well moving on from there, we went to visit the Roman Baths – but didn’t go for the tour – but probably I should on another visit. Near the Roman Baths, is the Bath abbey, so, we decided to go in. Something, I would definitely recommend. Well, that could be that I just love old churches (not to worship in – but to go see – I prefer smaller churches to worship in).

Bath Abbey

But the Abbey is quite pretty inside, the roof is quite ornate and there are many painted glass windows … whilst all that is quite nice, what I really enjoyed was going to the Bath Abbey Heritage Vaults, which is outside of the Abbey and underground. It used to be where the old cloister was. In there, when they were digging it up they found a number of bodies, an it turned out to be a monk burial place. There is also a mystery woman they’ve found – what was a woman doing there in monastery … now that’s the mystery – they reckon she was a benefactress since her bones were about 200 years older than the other monks … (if you go you can still see her … i.e. her skeleton. There is also a cross-section of how deep Bath i.e. the level where the soil actually is, and where the Roman and other stone levels were … very fascinating!!

There was also a really nice guy (like a museum curator-type) who told us all about this. Mariam did wonder why he chose to engage us in conversation to tell us this stuff, since he ignored everyone else … but I think it is me … I tend to attract the type. I once went into the church by Tower of London, and the curator guy there just took me for a whole tour, I just went in to kill time, but he decided he had to show me the cellars (where they found people buried from something – can’t remember either a disease outbreak or from the Great London Fire), and the old church walls. He also explained to me in great detail what hung, drawn and quartered was … I think I blogged that somewhere … gotta go find it …

Anyway, part 2 continues on how I crash a Jane Austen rehearsal dinner … which I may write this evening …

This was originally posted on a blog I have at OkCupid yesterday at 8:35 am … but decided to post it here as well, since I thought it would be a good blog post … there are two parts and this is the first part.