Bath for the Jane Austen Festival

Heath and I are officially record holders in the Guinness Book of Records! We went to Bath last weekend to celebrate my birthday. When planning the trip we found out that it was the Jane Austen Festival which is a week long fete. This year they were attempting to break the world record for number of people gathered in Regency Attire. We went to London and got ourselves some costumes and headed for the Grand Promenade with 350 other Jane Austen fans. Heath looked very dashing in his coat and breeches. He even got interviewed. Unfortunately for him he's never watched a movie or read an Austen book in his life. It was a very short rather awkward interview. I think know he rather wishes he'd paid better attention.

After the official count everyone headed down to the Country Fair. Heath and I slipped out early to take a walk around Bath and a boat ride up the river. Bath has beautifully preserved Georgian architecture. All of the costumed people fit in perfectly with the cityscape.

Bath is famous for its hot springs. We went to the therme spa on Sunday morning for some relaxation. The spa is about 5 floors with various pools and saunas on each floor. The main pool is on the roof with a beautiful view of Bath. We luckily had nice weather so we got to enjoy the view without getting rained on. My favorite part was the steam room. It is a giant room with four huge plexiglass bubbles in it. Each one is a sauna with a different scent. They had Eucalyptus, Mint, Lavender and Frankincense. It was fun to hop back and forth between them.

After our spa we went to see the Roman Baths. These sadly are no longer open for public bathing. Although when you look at the green water maybe that's not such a bad thing. We did taste the waters. I don't care what health benefits they're supposed to have. It tastes awful!

We ended our trip at the Pump Room for a Champagne Tea. Persuasion has a few scenes set in the Pump Room where people went to socialize and take the waters. Our tea was fabulous. They even have live band that plays. I think I could happily have tea everyday. I couldn't come close to finishing my share. We had our tea and champagne of course. We also got smoked salmon sandwiches, scones with clotted cream (so yummy! There's nothing in the US to compare to clotted cream) and a selection of pastries. Luckily this fortified us for the long journey home.