The Beautiful City of Bath

I realized recently that many of you, while you may know I'm in England, have no idea where I am specifically.  Let's study the often-forgot, and therefore frightening subject of geography for a moment.

My town, Leicester, is smack dab right in the middle of England.  I hadn't traveled outside this city yet, unless you count my brief time in London at the airport (which I don't); but today a big group of study abroad students went to Bath (it's not on this map... sorry... but if you look in the lower left side of England before the peninsula really starts to jut out, and just parallel to the bottom-most point of Wales, you'll see a city called Bristol, which is very near Bath).  

Bath was a stunningly beautiful town with architecture around every corner that took my breath away, and history enough for 10 cities!  However, before I availed myself of the copious culture Bath had to offer... I had to have me some lunch.  

So finally I had...

 Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Delicious!

 So this table of food quickly turned into...

...this table of empty plates!

I was a happy girl!

From there, my friends, Mayra and Megan, and I began wandering the streets of Bath to see what we could see; and oh my goodness what we saw!!!!

Right after we turned the corner from the block with all the restaurants we saw this.  

And a few doors down:

Even the simplest of buildings had a kind of artistic presentation about them.

 And still others knocked the wind out of me with their beauty.

 An English cliche!  How exciting!

They seem even more cliche with the streetlamp, doesn't it?  Narnia, anyone?

 The houses and cottages of Bath on the hillside.

The coat of arms of the City of Bath, which was explained to us by the nicest gentleman after we all stood there with our heads cocked to the side asking, "What is it?"

 However, my favorite part of Bath came at the end of the day when we finally found the Roman Baths... 

which were unfortunately closed already; but not unfortunately was the adjacent building: 

The Bath Abbey

 Pictures can't begin to do it justice.

 I stared slackjawed up at this for what seemed like hours.

 The glass of the windows was so beautiful!

 I can only imagine what this would have looked like at night with all the perfect lighting.

 Every inch of this building was covered in detailed work that completely amazed me.

 Even the door!

 And as the daylight began to fade, the Abbey looked even more beautiful.

Bath is also known for being the home of Jane Austen for several years before she was published.  In fact, Bath features prominently in great detail in many of her novels.  So naturally there's a Jane Austen museum in Bath; and even more naturally I went!

All of the museum staff were clothed in Regency era costume and spoke with proper English accents of the time.

Jane's likeness was plastered on everything that would keep still inside!

This little tidbit of information was incredible!

(James McAvoy's character in Becoming Jane)

There was a costume section that allowed you to adorn yourself in the garments of the regency period... and I had to try on the top hat.  I mean, come on, who could resist that level of temptation?

 Oh, and also the bonnet.  

Autograph from Matthew Macfadyen... my personal favorite Mr. Darcy!

So yes, all in all, it was a wonderful English day filled with too many cliches to count and every one of them as enjoyable as the last!