Traveling England: Bath and Oxford

The past few weekends my friends and I have been traveling around England. Thus far we've been to Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford and Dover, but let's just start with the adventures in Bath and Oxford!

BATH: I'll start by saying that Bath was definitely my favorite place I've visited outside of London. The architecture is absolutely beautiful, and the town sits in the middle of a beautiful valley. The weather was perfect while we were there, so my friends and I had a leisurely weekend going to the Jane Austen museum, drinking tea, and having a picnic. We also went to the Assembly Rooms, which is where back in the Georgian era, the aristocracy went to dance and socialize after dinner. Jane Austen went there herself! (For those who don't know, Jane Austen lived in Bath for part of her life, and many of her books reference or take place in the town of Bath). During the Georgian era Bath was the "posh" place to be seen.

 As I mentioned, in the afternoon we went to tea, and had the English breakfast blend and a "Bath Bun", which is like a sweet dinner roll with a little bit of sugar and black currants on top. After that we went into Bath Abbey and saw part of a wonderful organ concert, and then just wondered around the town looking in the shops and taking in the scenery.

The next day was my favorite because we had a picnic in front of the Royal Crescent (shown below), and just generally enjoyed the lovely day! We also went in to the No. 1 Royal Crescent museum, which is basically just a replica of a Georgian town house of the day. If you look at the picture of the crescent below, it is actually 30 town houses all put together where the aristocracy lived. The outside facade was designed by Wood, but as people purchased the rights to the houses they built the house behind the outside facade according to their wishes. One of the ladies working in the museum told us she had been inside 7 of the 30 houses, and that each one had a completely different layout.

We also learned that the last time one of these townhouses changed hands (because most of the time they're just passed down within a family), the house sold for 4 million pounds! After our tour we were able to walk around a bit longer, and then had to catch the bus back home.

OXFORD: The home of Oxford University, and to some of the film locations of the much loved Harry Potter movies! The town of Oxford is a nice place to visit. It's a very quaint, picturesque, college town, but filled with tourists on the weekends! While we were there we toured the Divinity School in Oxford University. It was fun to go in because it's essentially the heart of the school where people used to have to stand in front of a panel of teachers to take their oral exams. It's also one of the Harry Potter film locations! You may recognize the picture below as being the Hospital Wing from the Harry Potter movies, and the room where Professor McGonagall teaches the Gryffindor's to dance for the Yule Ball in the 4th movie. I know. SO much excitement!

We also just generally wondered around Oxford's campus, and took in the scenery. The best part of the trip by far was when Will Wooten, Ellison Craft and I went "punting" on the river. Yes, punting. This is basically where you are in a flat boat and instead of using oars to move your boat, you get a heavy, long metal pole and you have to push yourself along the river. This sounds easy, and in theory it should be...my friends that is the wrong assumption. I can tell you from first hand experience. It is incredibly hard to make that boat go where you want it to! We spent a lot of time stranded horizontally in the river while I was captain of the boat. I also somehow managed to hit pretty much every other boat out there on the river as well (don't be too worried, pretty much everyone on the river was hitting each other because we were all newbies!) However, I can at least say I did not fall in, which is more than I can say about the poor ***bloke*** (there's your British word of the day!) in the picture below!

 I was also viciously attacked by trees while I was punting as well.

Hopefully everyone learned a lot from this post. Take away points:
1. Bath is beautiful, and is a great place for picnics!
2. Punting is REALLY HARD...as evidenced by my facial expression above.
3. British word for the day "Bloke"...as in "Did you see the poor bloke that fell in the river?"

More soon!