From Tampa Bay to the Thames: Walking in Jane Austen's Footsteps
"Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?"
Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey
This past weekend I went to Bath, a city in Southwest England, to take in the beautiful countryside vistas on the bus ride there and taste the healing waters of the hot springs that run underneath Bath.
Bath was also the home of Jane Austen for five years and, though she detested living in Bath, it is also the setting of two of her novels: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The older part of the city looks almost frozen in time to how it would have looked to Austen. I could imagine Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey walking through the streets, or Anne Elliot and the Crofts meeting in Orange Grove.
Austen's six novels are some of my favorite novels of all time. I particularly like Pride and Prejudice (of course) and Persuasion. Persuasion takes the "happily ever after" of the rest of the novels and shows how fake it can be. The main couple of the novel have already met, have already been in a relationship, and have broken up. It feels more realistic than the other stories, even though there is ultimately a happy ending.
These stories, that a young English women wrote during the Regency era of Britain, are timeless. They have been remade into new novels, Hollywood blockbusters and YouTube series.
While I wasn't able to go to the Jane Austen Centre during this trip, I was lucky enough to go during my last visit to Bath in 2013.
Highlights of this visit to Bath were the Roman Baths, Bath Abbey and some shopping. While we didn't get a lot of time to wander around Bath, I was still able to buy some souvenirs! I got some Bath Gin from a tourist shop, a postcard from the Roman Baths Shop, and coffee fudge and salted chocolate fudge from the San Francisco Fudge Factory. I've tried the salted chocolate fudge and it is amazing.
After Bath, we took a bus to Avebury in Wiltshire. Avebury is a neolithic stone henge, like Stonehenge, with three stone circles. During peak tourist months, there is also a barn and a manor that visitors can go to. This time, however, we could only go into the stone circles. Although not as impressive as Stonehenge, in Avebury visitors can go up and touch the stones.
We stayed there for a half hour before heading back to London. It was nice being able to escape the bustling city and spend some time in the countryside. Here are some photos from my visit to Bath and Avebury.
Thanks for reading!