Bath Day 1 - Jane Austen's house, Holburne Museum

11/4/2014

Bath

We're in Jane Austen territory! Yay! The whole city seems to be a walking memory of her two years here, which is absolutely lovely. It's like the rest of the world has melted away and you're in Regency England *sigh* I'm floating right now, I'm so happy.

But the day didn't really start out so well...

We got up early today to finish packing because we'd bought way too much stuff in London. The suitcases were having trouble closing and to add to that, the hotel had no elevator. We had to drag the suitcases down 2.5 staircases, then a normally 5 minute walk to King's Cross became 1/2 hour. The luggage was so freakin heavy, we were sweaty, cross with each other...yeah, it was just painful.

Angel: I was very well behaved.

Jen: Relative to our first time in Europe, yes, Baby was very well behaved. She's been amazing this time around, waking up early every day to do laundry in our London hotel (they have a washer and dryer...3 floors down, with no elevator).

We got on the metro at King's Cross to go to Paddington to catch our 12pm train to Bath Spa. Thank God both stations had elevators! The wheel on my suitcase broke down a while back, so it's hard to push. As we got off the metro at Paddington, I was busy trying to yank my suitcase out of the way of people when I heard a man ask Angel if we needed help with our luggage. Angel thanked him and politely declined. I thought his voice was pretty hot, so later on I asked Angel what the man looked like. Baby replied that he's about our age and he looked like he could be an actor in the Book of Mormon we saw last night--most the Caucasian actors in the Book of Mormon are super cute blond, blue-eyed chaps.

When we got into Bath, two more young, strapping British chaps offered to help us with our luggage, and I'm so completely grateful because I fell down the train steps, trying to get one of the damn luggage out of the train. Angel commented that the guys in the UK, France, Germany, and Austria have always been pretty helpful in our journeys to Europe. They've helped lug our luggage up and down stairs, be it in the metro, train station or airport. They totally didn't need to, especially as our suitcases are always near-overweight. C'mon, Asian guys, gotta step up!

Once we got into our hotel, all our frustrations with the luggage melted away. The hotel is super posh, the lobby's gorgeous and the whole town is basically an ode to the Regency era. I could go on and on about the beautiful floral wallpapers, the chandeliers, the gilded mirrors...*sigh*

Our hotel is normally around 250 pounds/night ($400), but in some twist of luck--or perhaps because I booked very early on--I got it for $110/night, including breakfast (it's usually nearly 20 pounds/person). Mom had seen pictures of the hotel and really wanted to stay here, so her excitement bubbled over to me too.

Angel was jumping up and down in excitement by the time we got into our hotel room and grabbed the camera from me to take pictures. She kept saying how much she loves Bath. Oh, cutes.

The shower even has the Roman Baths as a background wallpaper!

Angel really wants the hotel room telephone:

The wallpaper and damask carpet!

Man, if I could only have their wallpaper!

Angel pretty much pushed me out the door because she was so excited to explore Bath. We decided to walk to Jane Austen's house and along the way, we walked by one of the locations used in Persuasion. Totally unexpected, but very welcome sight. We've seen Persuasion probably 50 times and it's just breathtaking to finally see everything in person.

Market hall used in Persuasion set

And the Pump Room! This is where the well-heeled in the Regency era would come to gossip and socialize:

Across the street is Pasty Presto, which, according to their poster, says they've been voted World's Best Cornish pasty. So heck yeah, we had to try one.

Yummy!

Bath Abbey

Pulteney Bridge spanning across the River Avon

Some of the houses in Bath have plaques in front of them, such as this one:

The plaque says that Prince Napolean III once stayed here.

And another very, very special plaque:

OK, so we deliberately sought out her house, but when in Bath...

Jane Austen stayed in this house for 2 years, and she drew from her experience here in her writings. The Pump Room, Assembly Room, "taking the water," all these popped up in her writing.

The Crown Inn has a poster outside telling its history, which we thought was pretty funny (well, perhaps not for the Earl of Essex). There's been a hostel on this land since the 1300s for traveling monks and pilgrims. Later on, the land was granted to Sir Neville by Queen Mary I. One of the last time the land changed hands was when the Earl of Essex owned it. He gave the deed to wealthy MP William Pulteney to settle his card debts of 19,000 pounds. Yikes. Imagine 19,000 pounds in those days! All for a turn of the cards!

Across from Jane Austen's house is the Holburne Museum. Sir William Holburne used to own this building and at one point in time, the building served as the main access point to Sydney Pleasure Gardens behind it. Jane Austen used to frequent the gardens via the Holburne house. 

Nowadays, it's a museum housing Sir Holburne's treasured collection of art, miniatures, porcelain, etc. The admission is free. Angel didn't want to go in, but since it was still early, I persuaded her to go with me.

And she was very glad she did. The 3rd floor has an audioguide about Jane Austen's letter to her sister, Cassandra. In it, she tells of her life living in Bath. And she sounds exactly like us! haha She's rather snarky--she writes about the floral muslin print she saw here, and that she felt her own muslin was much prettier. She's also a bargain hunter! She wrote about a few shops she heard that sold fabric on the cheap, so she promised Cassandra that she'd try to buy a few fabrics for her.

Sir William Holburne enjoyed collecting many, many different things (over 4000 objects!). His older brother was originally set to inherit the baronetcy, but he died in battle, so young William inherited instead. We saw his passport when he went on his Grand Tour and Angel said she wanted that many stamps on her own passport. The thing is, the EU only stamps once per entry/exit instead of individual countries, so sorry, baby.

A few items were fakes. There's a few in Sir Holburne's collection called "Billys and Charleys." There once was a Billy and Charley who would walk up and down the River Thames, scavenging for cast-aside antiques that would wash ashore that they could sell. They quickly learned that it's easier to forge these antiques than it is to keep scavenging, so they set up shop and became very successful as antique dealers. Only problem was, they weren't educated, so many of their "antiques" were not historically accurate. But they made each object look so convincing that many in the nobility couldn't tell the difference. Nowadays, some Billy and Charley objects sell for more than the original!

The piano that Rachmaninov used for concerts is displayed here:

We absolutely love Bath!

Holborne Museum

On our stroll back to our hotel, we saw a Waitrose, so of course, we had to pop in. Graham Norton was in Bath the last week of October! Damn. Though why they still have the promo materials out, no idea.

His quote is soooo Angel:

We bought a trio of sandwiches from Waitrose for our dinner, which we ate in the comforts of our very plush, Egyptian linen bed:

British Free Range Egg salad and watercress--the egg is very tasty!

Prawn and Mayo sandwich

BLT sandwich with British smoked bacon--though Baby says she misses applewood-smoked bacon

Angel was very excited when she was this at Waitrose:

Especially as it's filled with raspberry jam and not strawberry:

Waitrose also sells flapjacks and millionaire shortbread, so we bought a tub of each to try:

Their flapjacks are very fudgy in texture and has a very fresh, milky taste to it, which I thought was very lovely. Angel would have preferred chocolate drizzled on it, but I think that would've ruined the milky flavor.

Their millionaire shortbread isn't as good as Sainsbury's, though. The caramel and shortbread layers are a tad too hard, not like Sainsbury's melt-in-your-mouth goodness.