RSV England Trip - Day One: Walking Tour of Bath

Continuing with my pictures from England!  Day Zero was just arriving in Bath and getting settled.  Day One of the actual tour was Tuesday, June 18.

Those of us staying at Elton House walked together over to the Francis Hotel, where the other half of our tour guests were staying.  My friend Heather and I were the only two dressed in Regency for the day's tour, so naturally we had to get a photo of the two of us beneath this gorgeous portrait hanging in the hotel lobby:

Photo by Renee

Photo by Renee

Photo by Renee

(I'll go into detail about my ensemble for the day in another post.)

We then met up with our tour guide, Anne-Marie:

We set off on a brisk pace!  

Bath is full of charming spots like this.

There wasn't much time for selfies, but I managed to sneak in one or two!

I also found time to admire Heather's lovely ensemble, complete with Shocking Bad Hat!

The roof to the right in this photo is a modern bath spa:

I just loved the architecture of the whole city!

Anne-Marie was explaining what this symbol meant, but honestly I forgot:

When I return to Bath (it will happen) I must spend some time in this beautiful park!  I only saw it from above:

The River Avon - which simply means "river" in Celtic/Welsh:

Looking back at Bath Abbey:

Check out this bridge over the river:

And here is another view of the same bridge:

Yes, that entire city street and all the shops along it are ON THE BRIDGE!  How cool is that?

More admiration of Heather's ensemble:

We learned a lot about the 18th Century architecture of the city, and the father and son - both named John Wood - who designed many of the historic stone buildings that we saw on the tour.  Like the Royal Mineral Water Hospital:

And The Circus:

So incredible!

This is why I dressed in Regency - for photo opportunities like this:

If anyone famous lived there, you can bet there's a plaque above the door:

Such as this one for the painter Gainsborough:

I was fascinated by the carved motifs above the columns:

I did not find any two that were exactly alike!

As we walked, I was constantly distracted by the lovely little gardens down below street level:

And little spots of wild flowers just blooming all over the place:

Next we toured The Royal Crescent!  This is my favorite shot from the whole day:

Photo by Renee

After we learned about the architecture and history of the building, we also got to tour inside No.1 Royal Crescent!  It has been renovated back to the Georgian style, and decorated with original furnishings contemporary to when it was first built.

They had one costumed gentleman who kindly posed with me for a photo:

And isn't this a lovely staircase?

I loved all the portraits on the walls:

And this beautiful archway:

The carpet is a reproduction, woven on the same type of looms that the original would have been:

Each room had a knowledgeable person who gave us information about the objects in the room, and the room itself, on our self-guided tour.  They were happy to answer all of our questions:

I couldn't resist a historic mirror selfie in the hallway:

This was a room for entertaining!

And out the window you can see the rest of the Royal Crescent, No. 1 being situated at the far end, of course.

There's a lady's bedchamber:

And a gentleman's:

Just as fascinating as the upstairs rooms were the "below stairs" areas, including the kitchen:

So many antique irons!

There was one item in the entire museum that we were encouraged to touch:

They are not lying!  I can't imagine having the upper body strength necessary to iron clothes with this!

After the Crescent, we walked to the Assembly Rooms.  On the way, we got to experience some of the lovely weather Bath is famous for.  :p

The Assembly Rooms were unfortunately closed to the public for a private event that day.  :(  But we were able to explore the Bath Fashion Museum downstairs, which was well worth the trip!

I took A LOT of photos in the fashion museum, but in order to keep this post from getting over-long I'm going to put them up on a separate page here:  Fashion Museum Photos

I'm actually surprised that I took as many photos as I did, because this was around noon on my second day in England, and jet lag was beginning to take its toll.  There were a couple spots with chairs throughout the museum, and I confess I slightly dozed off in one for a few minutes!

Luckily that was our last stop of the day, but by this time I was starving.  A group of us went to a pub for lunch, where I had a skillet of mac & cheese:

On the way back to the house, I couldn't resist taking some silly photos by one of the shops:

Then I went back to my room, laid on my bed, and napped for three hours.  :p  It was amazing. 

That evening we had dinner in the house, cooked by two of our tour members.  It was delicious, and so much fun sitting and eating in our historic dining room! 

We had coq au vin with rice, and baguettes and butter. 

Ann, Chris, & Kate

Chris and Ann were our chefs for the evening.

Julie, Renee, Jean

Linda, Chantel, Denisa

Cathy, me, Sherrie, Ann again

It was so lovely eating together, and made us feel like we were really living in the house for the week.  And after dinner we had wine and cheese. 

And in the evening - which lasted forever because the sun didn't set until almost 10 PM - I was of course sewing. 

I was sewing almost every day of the trip, because of course I didn't finish everything before I left!  Someday I'll have my life together and not be sewing at or on the way to an event.