Looking at the date of my last post, I must admit that I've been remiss in documenting my gallivanting adventures, and it certainly feels great to be back! I surely hope you express the same sentiments!
Not to lead you astray, as I have not been traveling the world during my hiatus. But I certainly have had quite a bit of adventure in its own right in the United States. But you'll just have to take my word for that.
We presently find ourself in Great Britain. Now you might be curious as to the reason behind our visit, and let me not make you wonder for long. Well, last summer, Marty's brother and his family came for a visit, and we learned that our niece, Suzie, was studying abroad this semester in London. That was all the incentive Marty needed to schedule a trip.
Ok, let me clarify that statement: Marty was on board for trying to make a trip happen, and this gallivanting woman was responsible for making it work. So, as the time approached and we realized that it was now or never, and once Marty cleared the vacation time, I went to work setting up this trip.
Now, you might be wondering why a 19 year old girl would want to hang out with two 60+ relatives, but no worries there. To keep things exciting and fun, we invited Amy to tag along! She managed to make it work regarding vacation days, tickets were purchased, and here we are!
We have a few days to enjoy the countryside ourselves before meeting up with Suzie, so we scheduled flights so that we could rendezvous at Heathrow airport this morning to begin our adventure.
Marty and I were scheduled to land at 9:30 am with Amy's flight landing at 9:50. Can't get much better than that!
But before you get too excited, let me just say that things don't always go as planned. You knew that....right?
We actually landed at 9:15, which seemed a plus at the time, headed to passport control, and soon found ourselves remembering just why we try to avoid Heathrow airport.
Honestly, this must be the one place on earth that takes pleasure in seeing if they can simulate sardines in respect to people and see just how many they can squeeze into a can. A very large can. Hundreds of people huddled together in numerous rows, just waiting for the opportunity to finally make it to the interrogation that determines whether their passport will finally be stamped.
So, just how long do you suppose such a feat would take?
One hour 30 minutes. Yep. We landed at 9:15, made our way to border patrol, and finally managed to make it through the customs door and into the body of the airport by 11:00.
It was an exciting moment for us!
In the meantime, Amy landed at 9:50 am. She, too, headed to border patrol, and guess how long it took her to get that stamp in her passport?
You guessed it: One hour 30 minutes. Well, actually, more like one hour 45 minutes, but who's counting?
It was nearly noon before we managed to board the Avis rent a car van to drive us to our scheduled rental car. Luckily, the van driver was quite amusing, and that set the stage for some laughs to begin this adventure.
When I was setting up the trip, Amy had expressed an interest in visiting Bath, so I set about finding accommodations and things to do there. Bath has a strong link with Jane Austen, who used this city as a location in her novel, Persuasion. Since Amy is a huge fan of Jane Austin, I knew that she would be excited about all things Jane Austen. So, it made perfect sense to stop in Chawton, which was really only a slight detour from Heathrow to Bath.
Chawton is where Jane lived when she was actively writing many of her novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility as well as Mansford Park.
We didn't arrive in Chawton until nearly 1:30, and my original plan had us in town by noon, but we still decided to see how much ground we could cover in short time, as the B&B was expecting us around 5:00 pm, and it was nearly a two hour drive to get there.
Once in town, we parked the car and headed to Chawton House, primarily because I knew that it had a tea room, and by now, we really needed some sustenance.
Amy and I wasted no time ordering cream teas.
We enjoyed our treat outside, which was a pleasant respite from the hot, stuffy airport that we had left earlier.
The scones were delicious, and got us in the mood for discovering life in the early 1800's when Jane Austen would have been writing her novels.
The village is really quite charming, and what a treat it was to see daffodils in bloom!
Chawton house was well worth the stop in itself, as you can see from the grandiose entrance.
Jane's brother, Edward inherited this estate from the Knight family, who had kind of adopted him when he was a youngster. The couple died childless, and actually passed several estates onto Edward.
Jane spent quite a bit of time here, visiting with her brother and his family.
We were able to tour the interior of this grand home, parts of which were built as early as the late 1500's.
Included among the artifacts were several original copies of Jane's books as well as family personal items that had been saved over the years.
There was a library devoted to books written primarily by women, all before 1830.
The outside gardens were just beginning to blossom, and scattered throughout were these cute plaques, each representing a different quote attributed to one of Jane's books:
We took a quick look around
Climbed to the upper garden to capture a view of the back of the house
and began our trek back into the village to check out the Jane Austen house.
There was certainly some very interesting scenery along the way.
The thatched roofs upon the houses were especially unique.
Jane's brother, Edward, was responsible for setting up Jane, and her sister Clarissa, in the home in Chawton. After they died, the house eventually became home to tenements, and in 1949, the house was purchased by Thomas Edward Carpenter, who dedicated it as a museum to Jane Austen's works in memory of his son, Lt Philip John Carpenter who was killed in action in Italy in 1944.
Today, there is a historical foundation that is dedicated to collecting and preserving articles that belonged to the Austen family, as well as the house itself.
As you can see, Amy was quite excited to add this to today's adventures.
I didn't take many interior photos, but the rooms contained first editions of Jane's books that were published in Philadelphia in 1930, original letters that she had written, a blue turquoise ring that had been handed down with verification to several generations, with the latest donating it to the library as part of their collection.
The outside featured some lovely gardens, just beginning to sport some blooms.
We really could have spent a lot more time delving into the items, but it was getting late and we needed to make our way to Bath to check into our B&B.
So, we hopped in the car and began the drive to Bath with Marty behind the wheel.
About an hour into the drive, Amy spotted Stonehenge looming before us, and she managed to capture a photo from the front seat of the car.
Pretty cool, don't you think?
We easily found our B&B on the outskirts of Bath, and checked into Villa Claudia. We are on the top floor of the building, which is in a very quiet neighborhood, and only about a block from the River Avon.
Our B&B hostess arranged dinner reservations for us at 6:30 at the
It was a charming place, located right on the edge of the river.
And we couldn't have asked for a better meal!
Now it's off to bed to get some much needed rest! Bath is calling our name for tomorrow!
