Trains, Bath, and Jane Austen tea
So, yesterday we took the train to Bath. Woooot!!!! (We'd originally planned to spend the whole weekend there, but irritating practicalities got in the way.) Anyone who follows me on twitter probably saw how ridiculously excited I was by the end of Friday night, as I searched out all the zillion things I wanted to do while we were there on Saturday.
Of course, that was before we missed our connection in Newport (Wales) and ended up spending an extra hour there...sigh. The Newport train station is NOT the place to be stuck for an hour, especially on a Saturday, when all the shops in the station are closed. Luckily, there was one open café where we sat for most of the hour. I listened to Anna Netrebko sing Russian opera arias on my iTouch and read Jim Hines's Red Hood's Revenge (fun adventure fantasy with an all-female cast of heroes)...so in other words, it was not all bad. But still, my list of Cool Things To Do got a whole lot shorter when I realized that we actually had less than 3 hours in the city. Oops.
At least that gives us a good excuse to go back again SOON.
And of course it was wonderful anyway. It was Bath! Here are some of the things I saw as we walked through town:
I always love the winding streets:
Of course we had to walk past the Pump Room, where Kat gets into an awful lot of trouble in Kat Book 2, A Tangle of Magicks:
The whole city was full of lions, but this one was my favorite:
And OF COURSE I couldn't miss a stop at the Jane Austen Centre, my favorite museum anywhere:
(Yesterday was the last day of the Jane Austen festival, which meant that there were people walking through the streets wearing Regency clothing. I really yearned for some of those dresses - so beautiful! And I really wanted to take photos of some of the best, but was afraid it would be too rude to come up and snap pictures of strangers just for their clothing. I figured it was OK to take a photo of the Jane Austen Centre itself, though, whether or not people in Regency-wear were standing in front of it.)
And yesterday, for the first time ever, we went to the Jane Austen Centre's Regency tea Room. Mmm! Like many coffeeshops, it had paintings for sale on the walls...but the painting that hung over our table was an actual Regency-era painting, on sale for £3,300. And gorgeous! The toasted teacake was pretty awful, to be honest, but the brie & cranberry sandwich was yummy, and the Jane Austen-blend tea (supposedly based on a typical Regency-era blend) was DELICIOUS! I bought a bag of tealeaves to take home with us, so now as I write my dragon novel I can drink it and be inspired. (Or at least have a really nice drink!)
Add in a trip to the HUGE Bath branch of Waterstones, a really nice coffee date with Jayne from Templar, and the coolness of getting to meet some of the organizers of the Bath Children's Literary Festival (one of whom had already read A Most Improper Magick / Kat, Incorrigible, back when it was still called Kat by Moonlight!), and it was a really awesome afternoon...which convinced me all over again that we NEED to go back for a full week or at least a full weekend.
What about you guys? If you could fly to any major city in the world for a spur-of-the-moment weekend, which one would it be?
Of course, that was before we missed our connection in Newport (Wales) and ended up spending an extra hour there...sigh. The Newport train station is NOT the place to be stuck for an hour, especially on a Saturday, when all the shops in the station are closed. Luckily, there was one open café where we sat for most of the hour. I listened to Anna Netrebko sing Russian opera arias on my iTouch and read Jim Hines's Red Hood's Revenge (fun adventure fantasy with an all-female cast of heroes)...so in other words, it was not all bad. But still, my list of Cool Things To Do got a whole lot shorter when I realized that we actually had less than 3 hours in the city. Oops.
At least that gives us a good excuse to go back again SOON.
And of course it was wonderful anyway. It was Bath! Here are some of the things I saw as we walked through town:
I always love the winding streets:
Of course we had to walk past the Pump Room, where Kat gets into an awful lot of trouble in Kat Book 2, A Tangle of Magicks:
The whole city was full of lions, but this one was my favorite:
And OF COURSE I couldn't miss a stop at the Jane Austen Centre, my favorite museum anywhere:
(Yesterday was the last day of the Jane Austen festival, which meant that there were people walking through the streets wearing Regency clothing. I really yearned for some of those dresses - so beautiful! And I really wanted to take photos of some of the best, but was afraid it would be too rude to come up and snap pictures of strangers just for their clothing. I figured it was OK to take a photo of the Jane Austen Centre itself, though, whether or not people in Regency-wear were standing in front of it.)
And yesterday, for the first time ever, we went to the Jane Austen Centre's Regency tea Room. Mmm! Like many coffeeshops, it had paintings for sale on the walls...but the painting that hung over our table was an actual Regency-era painting, on sale for £3,300. And gorgeous! The toasted teacake was pretty awful, to be honest, but the brie & cranberry sandwich was yummy, and the Jane Austen-blend tea (supposedly based on a typical Regency-era blend) was DELICIOUS! I bought a bag of tealeaves to take home with us, so now as I write my dragon novel I can drink it and be inspired. (Or at least have a really nice drink!)
Add in a trip to the HUGE Bath branch of Waterstones, a really nice coffee date with Jayne from Templar, and the coolness of getting to meet some of the organizers of the Bath Children's Literary Festival (one of whom had already read A Most Improper Magick / Kat, Incorrigible, back when it was still called Kat by Moonlight!), and it was a really awesome afternoon...which convinced me all over again that we NEED to go back for a full week or at least a full weekend.
What about you guys? If you could fly to any major city in the world for a spur-of-the-moment weekend, which one would it be?