England - Day 3 - The English Countryside

The Cotswolds - your quintessential English countryside! We stopped here later in the day.

Our third morning in England started with another yummy breakfast from Sue, our cute B&B owner. We were really sad to leave her place, and I was sad to leave Bath. It was just the cutest little town, and filled with so much Jane Austen, that I had a hard time saying good-bye. Luckily, we had a few more Jane Austen things to see before we left Bath for good.

Our cute little room at Cornerways B&B.

Sue. Isn't she the cutest little English grandma!? 

Before we left Bath, we visited a few more sights. The first one was the Roman baths - essentially why the town of Bath ever even existed. When the Romans occupied Britain, they used Bath as a sort of resort/healing town. If you had an infirmity of any kind, you were sent to Bath to be healed at the waters. There was a temple just outside of the baths, the idea being that you could use the bath to be healed, be cleaned, and then go worship in the temple. 

A view from the top level of the Great Bath. In Roman times, the whole thing was covered, so it was like a giant indoor rec center.

Our tour of the baths included a tour of the museum that weaved in and out of the baths themselves. It was so neat to be standing literally on top of so much history. 240,000 gallons of water come every day from deep down in the earth, at a constant temperature of 115 degrees. How amazing must that have been to the Romans who had no idea about natural hot springs? No wonder they thought the water was sent from the Gods.

The pediment of what used to be the temple that stood next to the  Roman Baths. Researchers aren't sure whose face is in the middle, but their best guess is Neptune, the god of water -which would be appropriate for the site.

Sulis Minerva. The life-giving mother goddess. The Romans believed that she was the goddess responsible for the mysterious hot springs, and this head once overlooked the holiest altar of the temple, where only the priests were allowed to go in to worship.

Angry or bitter Roman citizens would often write messages to Sulis Minerva on little metal sheets and then throw them in the hot springs in hopes that she would receive their prayers and grant them. They wrote things like, "Somebody stole my sandals. Please curse them and their family for the next eternity." Seriously. They were so funny to read.

One of the many temple altars that would have been standing in the temple courtyard. Here, prayers would be offered to Sulis Minerva in hopes of healing.

Some of the original steps to the temple! Isn't that cool!? They are so old!!

The Great Bath - this is where your average, everyday citizens could come to bathe, but only after they had fully washed themselves in a different, smaller bath.

The Great Bath with Bath Abbey behind.

We got to taste the water at the end of our tour - it was disgusting! I can't believe people would drink this stuff thinking it healed them! It made me feel sick. Haha. It was warm and tasted like the worst form of dirt you can imagine.

Check out how many minerals are in the bath water! At the bottom of the list here, you can see different types of mineral waters, like Evian and Perrier. Perrier has 480 milligrams, while the Bath water has 2,270. No wonder it tastes bad!

Our tour finished in the Pump Room. So - after the Romans left England, Bath sort of fizzled out into nothing and kind of faded off the map. Until Queen Mary bathed there, became pregnant, and bore a male son and heir to the throne. Just a few years later, Queen Anne visited Bath and left with a remedy for her gout. Both of these instances helped spread the word again about Bath, and it was soon a booming town again. It turned into a sort of "pleasure-city" where people came to relax, meet eligible young men and women, and pretend to be "high-society" even if you weren't. This was the Bath that Jane Austen knew. They made an elaborate palace-type hall surrounding the Roman Baths and named it The Pump Room. People would gather here for dances and other social gatherings. There is a pump in the room that pumps out water from the mineral springs for all of the high-society people that would have visited. We tasted it - and it was still just as gross as we remembered from the end of the roman bath tour. BUT - now we can say that we drank water from the pump room. I bet Jane Austen had some water from the same pump back in her day!! The pump room was a big deal in Jane Austen's book Northanger Abbey and is featured in Persuasion also. It was so fun to see in real life the building that is so often mentioned in her books.

Guys!! The pump room!! I was really here!!

Isn't it fancy? We didn't stay for tea - we didn't have time, but we popped in, had some yucky water and listened to the music for a bit.

This picture is from the 2007 adaptation of Persuasion. See the statue in the background?? It's the same statue as in the picture above. We were in the same room!!

Drinking the water. It's hard to see, but that fountain in the background is the famous "pump".

Here's a little video of Dave tasting the water and the music that was playing in the background. It was so much fun to be in that room. It was kind of surreal to me.

Our last stop in Bath was to visit the Jane Austen center. Holy cow. It was like heaven for me. It was a museum dedicated to Jane, and specifically to the time she spent in Bath. It was fun to see this museum, because the museum at her house in Chawton was about her life there, and didn't talk much about Bath at all. She didn't love Bath very much - she found the high-society people fake, insincere, and extremely two-faced. She was much happier with her life when she was living in Chawton, just a few years later. BUT - living in Bath gave her a great source of knowledge for her novels. When she writes about Bath, it is usually with a little contempt and the characters that live in Bath and love Bath are fake, insincere and two-faced, just like she found society there.

How fun is this!? All the workers at the museum wore name tags and acted like they were characters from Jane's books. This was Mr. Bennett at the door to greet us as we walked in the door. 

I felt extremely welcome as Mr. Darcy greeted me upon entering the museum. I love him!!!

A few of the clothes that would have been typical of Jane's time.

They had a dress up section again, and of course, we dressed up. 

This was his idea, and I'm not sure I have any words to describe it. 

This was the best part of the museum. At the very end, they have made a re-creation of Jane Austen based on descriptions of her, and her death-mask. This is the most accurate and realistic re-creation that has ever been made. Look how cute she was!! I know we would have been best friends.

The gift shop! I might have accidentally spent over 100 pounds there.....Whoops! 

We ended our visit at the center with a snack in the Regency Tea Room, located just above the Jane Austen center. The room had a giant picture of Mr. Darcy hanging on the wall, and so I felt like I was having tea with Mr. Darcy. I couldn't have been happier. I got hot chocolate and Dave actually got some herbal peppermint tea. He said he wanted to feel like he was having a real tea experience. Our drinks came with hot scones that were absolutely delicious. I loved having tea with Mr. Darcy - it was a perfect way to finish off my experience at the Jane Austen center and Bath as well.

Cheers!

The tea leaves left over from Dave's tea. We kept laughing about how we saw....The Grim!! If you're a true Harry Potter fan, you will understand our joke. :)

We were really sad to leave Bath (I think mostly I was), but we were also really excited to get to The Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are a little collection of about 20 villages, that are sleepy, small, 20-years-behind-the-times, quaint, adorable little towns. We expected them to be fun and cute, but they definitely exceeded our expectations. I try not to use the word cute all the time, but that is really the best word to describe the little towns. They were your quintessential little English villages dotting the countryside. Nobody was in a hurry, everything was relaxed and slow-paced. We spent the evening just driving through different little towns and exploring everything they had to offer. We tried to document with pictures, but they hardly even do it justice.

The first town we visited was Snowshill. I think there are probably 10 people that live in the town. Seriously! We saw no one, everything was silent, and there was nothing but us to disturb the beauty and landscape. 

Entering Snowshill

Doesn't this look like something you'd see on the cover of a travel magazine!? We were in love!

All of the little houses in Snowshill had names. 

The next town we stopped at was called Broadway. We mostly just drove through - we didn't explore too much. We got out a few times to get some pictures, but mostly we just took it all in. There was so much to see!!

I loved these trees! I kept calling them mushroom trees.

The next town we visited was Chipping Campden. Isn't that the cutest little name?? Chipping Campden! It is a medieval town, so it's been around FOREVER. It was so fun to imagine the town bustling with people like you see in Robin Hood. Thinking about how there used to be no cars, just horses for transportation. Kings, queens, knights, princesses, jousting, and old English words kept running through my mind the whole time we were exploring here. 

Try to imagine the city without cars. It actually isn't hard to do when you are there. The cars seem EXTREMELY out of place here.

Every little city in all of England - not just the Cotswolds - have WWI memorials. WWI was a HUGE deal for England, and they have built monuments for their fallen heroes everywhere. 

Don't mind the marshmallow look. It was really windy and pretty cold.

Every town in the Cotswolds has a Sheep Street. How fun, huh??

An old folks home! In Chipping Campden! I would totally want to live here if I was needing to move into a home when I'm older. I'm keeping this in mind! 

Chipping Campden is famous for the thatched roofs that are on some of the houses. They are SOO beautiful. Exactly what I think of when I think of a little country cottage in the beautiful countryside.

A little video from Chipping Campden

Our last city we explored was called Stow-on-the-Wold, which is the city where our B&B was as well. There wasn't as much to see here as Chipping Campden, but we still explored every inch we could of it. Stow-on-the-Wold was around in the pre-Roman times, and as early as 1107 was the site of an international fair where people came from as far away as Italy to trade for wool fleeces. Until the 1800s, the town had no running water and women still had to go fetch water from the roman well about a quarter mile away. See what I mean about behind the times?? I love when we can find places like that, that are almost untouched by tourism.

This main square used to be the hustle and bustle of the town. As many as 20,000 sheep were sold from this square every day!!

The remnants of an old, medieval stocks.  It was crazy to imagine people actually being locked up in things like this for their "radical" ideas about religion or other things.  And Dave is really sad. :)

We didn't eat here, but we thought it was cool that it was England's oldest inn. Established in 947 A.D. That's pretty old!

Every town in England also has a church. A church and a WWI memorial. Our last stop before dinner was to explore the church in Stow-on-the-Wold. This door around the back of the church should look familiar to Lord of the Rings lovers. The entrance to the mines of Moria anyone??? J.R.R. Tolkien was known for hiking through the Cotswolds and sketching trees like this. He definitely could have gotten inspiration from this church for his books.

Dave and I definitely geeked out for a minute talking about Lord of the Rings and how similar this looked to the entrance into Moria.

So there are about 4 different places to eat in Stow-on-the-Wold, so our options were a bit limited that night. We finally settled on this place called The Stow Lodge, which used to be the rectory for the church next door. The menu looked good and the price looked about right, so we decided to eat there. It was warm inside, which we were grateful for. When we sat down to order our food, I ordered some lasagna, and Dave ordered what he thought was fish and chips. He should have been a bit suspicious when he asked the water how many fish came in the thing he ordered, and the waiter said he didn't know - they just kind of dumped them all in the fryer. And the fact that he had to order the chips on the side. But - we were pretty tired and hungry, so he didn't think much of it until this is what came out for him to eat...

So Dave's not a picky eater, and will eat just about anything. BUT - he couldn't do these fish. They still had EYEBALLS you guys. I think he gagged one down, and then absolutely couldn't do anymore. He filled up on salad, the most bland chips ever, and we finished my lasagna - which was just okay. Needless to say, it was our worst meal in England. By far.

We checked into our little B&B that night feeling extremely grateful that we had packed a lot of food with us. We filled up in the room on goldfish, trail mix and protein bars. That tided us over until a yummy English breakfast the next morning when we got to know our darling B&B owner, Brenda.

Our cute room. It was so cozy. It reminded me of "the pink bedroom" at my grandma & grandpa's house. Does every grandma house have a pink bedroom?? It seems that way.