Bath, England - City Centre - August 2024

As I mentioned in my last post, the main draw for A and I to visit Bath is the connection to Jane Austen, into which I'll delve a little more in future posts. It's located just south of the Cotswalds, which we saw just a bit of during our bus ride from Bristol. I would absolutely love to go back to visit the area more fully in future with more time to dedicate to the area.

There are sort of two main tourist areas of town. The City Centre has the Abbey, Baths, shopping, and then the Royal Victoria Park area with the Royal Crescent, Circus, Assembly Rooms, and more. The first day, after visiting the Abbey and before our 6pm reservation at the Baths, we walked around the City Centre and hit some of the highlights.

St. Lawrence Street is just around the corner from the bus stop. It's sort of a short cut to the area around the Baths. It rained off and on when we first arrived, so we enjoyed exploring some of the nearby shops.

A encountered her first red phone booth in England.

The back of my fuzzy head looking across the Kingston Parade at the Abbey. Performers were scheduled regularly in the square, and it was really interesting to see the variety of skill and content.

The front. of the Roman Baths just around the corner from where I stood in the previous photo.

The Sally Lunn Bakery is in the Sally Lunn museum/restaurant/gift shop. It's considered the oldest house in Bath, and the place the Bath bun was created.

Sally Lunn was a young Huguenot baker in the bakery, and is credited with inventing the Bath Bunn. Clicking on the photo above will take you to a more robust history of Sally, but the short version is that Solange Luyen (renamed Sally Lunn by the Bath residents who didn't understand her pronunciation) escaped French persecution and came to Bath to create the famous brioche bun.

Jane Austen wrote about stuffing herself full of the buns (sometimes spelled "bunns") as she lived in Bath. This is the scene in the museum in the basement, right next to the very tiny gift shop where you can buy buns and other souvenirs.

We bought a bun(n) and took it out to Kingston Parade to share it on a bench while listening to an actively terrible guitarist and getting besieged by hungry pigeons.

My girl does not have a tiny head, and this thing was waaaay bigger than her face.

A caught me making a weird face while grimacing at the sheer size of this thing. It was good, but it definitely would have been better with some clotted cream and jam, or maybe some hazelnut spread.

Topping & Goliath is just a few steps away. Did I buy this copy of Persuasion just because it was from Bath, even though I've read it several times? I sure did.

A came home with a copy of Emma. It just felt right to buy Jane Austen books.