Ancient English city with free walking tours, fancy dress attractions and very famous ex-resident
SITTING at an old wooden school desk alongside my younger sister, our eyes locked and we burst into a fit of giggles.
Dipping our quill feathers into inkpots we haphazardly scribbled across parchment paper.
While the best I could manage was a faint scratch, my sister had more success.
Together, we penned a letter to our younger brother all about our visit to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.
Our rather laughable attempt at merely putting pen to paper gave us even more respect for the famous 19th-century author.
Austen lived in Bath while writing classics Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, both of which feature the city she loved.
The centre gives you a snapshot of her life and our costumed guide gave us an insight into Jane’s legacy before we toured the interactive displays with priceless pieces of memorabilia including unpublished manuscripts.
The centre also allows you to immerse yourself in the fashions of 18th-century Bath with its dress-up station.
We pulled on Regency-style dresses, bonnets, coats and various accessories before posing for photos next to a waxwork of Pride And Prejudice’s hero Mr Darcy.
After our photoshoot, we went upstairs for a spot of afternoon tea in the Regency Tea Room.
This gorgeous Georgian room is a cosy place to indulge in all the classics.
We plumped for the Jane Austen tea blend — made with China black teas popular in Regency times when Indian teas were not readily available – served in pretty floral teacups.
Next up, delicate finger sandwiches, homemade cakes and a scone with jam and cream arrived on a dainty stand.
With hunger banished, it was just a short stroll to our hotel, The Queensberry.
This characterful Georgian townhouse oozed Regency splendour complemented by the addition of slick modern touches.
Decked out in Regency blue, our spacious suite came with a super-king bed, two large wardrobes, a comfortable sofa, a coffee table and two cosy armchairs.
But the suite’s grandest feature was hidden behind two white doors – an en-suite bathroom at least the same size, if not bigger, than the room itself.
A huge white bathtub sat in the centre, offset by dramatic black tiles and delicate monochromatic peacock wallpaper as well as a vast walk-in shower.
An amorous scene
Each room is individually decorated, with even the cosy Club rooms — ideal for solo travellers — promising a quirky, contemporary take on the classics.
While we could have enjoyed an entire evening simply relaxing in our room, we knew we had to check out the hotel’s Olive Tree Restaurant — the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Bath.
The nine-course tasting menu doesn’t come cheap at £120pp but came with a glass of champagne.
Stand-out dishes included the truffle ravioli and the Driftwood cheese. But you don’t have to dig deep to enjoy Bath’s Austen delights.
You can download a free audio walking tour of the city created by Visit Bath.
The tour takes in the highlights of the city and includes extracts from Jane Austen’s novels and letters describing Bath as it would have been in its Georgian heyday.
The tour takes around 90 minutes but you can stop off at any point along the way to visit a museum or dip into a cafe or shop.
Beginning at Gravel Walk — the lovers’ lane of Austen’s day and the setting for an amorous scene in Persuasion — keep an eye out for the discrete door into the Georgian Garden, sympathetically restored to how it would have looked in the author’s time.
Admire the Royal Crescent where Austen’s cousin Jane Cooper lived, and another fabled terrrace The Circus, plus No 13 Queen Square and No 25 Gay Street — all of which have links to the Austen family but are now private homes.
And there was just enough time to visit the Roman Baths — just as popular a tourist attraction now as during Regency times — before our literary break came, as all great stories do, to an end.
GO: BATH
STAYING THERE: Double rooms at the 4* Queensberry Hotel are from £144 per night. See thequeensberry.co.uk.
OUT & ABOUT: Tickets to the Jane Austen Centre are £14.75 per adult. Afternoon tea is £26.50pp. See janeausten.co.uk.
MORE INFO: See visitbath.co.uk.