Saturday in Bath

My Saturday began at an early 4:30 am, but it was definitely worth it. Five girls and myself planned a day trip to Bath, the city famous for the Roman Baths and the other beautiful buildings like the Royal Crescent and The Circus. We took a train from the Paddington station at 6:00 and arrived in Bath at 8:10. The weather was not the best when we first got there, grey and rainy, but after about an hour the sky cleared up and the sun came out. It was interesting to be in the city that early in the morning, to see people opening up their businesses and others setting up market booths. We wandered around the city for about an hour before taking a bus tour to Stonehenge. The tour guide was really friendly and we basically had the tour to ourselves because it was us and another group of five people.

The ride to Stonehenge was through the countryside, which was beautiful, but unfortunately I couldn't enjoy the scenery as much as I wanted because of my motion sickness. But by the time we began walking around the monument, I felt better. I took so many pictures of Stonehenge and tried out a lot of camera settings, I had a lot of fun with it. By that point the weather was sunny, perfect for the pictures, but it was unbelievably windy because of the hill it sits on. After we had walked the whole circle around Stonehenge, we got back on our bus with Chris, our tour guide, and headed back to Bath.

So back to Bath at 12:30 to begin exploring. We first went to the Royal Crescent, which is a large curved building that is full of apartments. These would have been for the upper classes in society back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of Jane Austen inspired films have used Bath, and this Crescent, with women promenading around it. It was beautiful! Since it was so nice out, we all made our way down to the park in front of the Crescent and enjoyed laying in the grass. We took funny group pictures and soaked up the sun. After that break, we walked to The Circus, which is not what it sounds like. It is actually a group of apartments, in a similar architecture as the Crescent, but shaped in a complete circle. Again, this would have been high status living.

After viewing all of the major buildings, our group split up for about an hour. Charlotte, Jenna, and I went to the Jane Austen Centre to see the exhibit, while the other three went to the Abbey and sat by the Roman Baths. It was fun! It wasn't a museum, but an exhibit with info on her life and the time period that she lived in Bath. And in the last room there were signed autographs from stars in Pride and Predudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey. It was pretty wonderful. And while we were looking at those the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack was playing, how perfect.

We met up with the other half of our group and wandered around looking for food. I ended up getting a baguette sandwich, that was really good, with a drink for only 3 pounds. Yay for cheap dinner! At 5:45, we got back on our train to London, and the sun was setting. We definitely had a full day out and about, but it was great!