I have equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see...

I didn't think I could geek out on Jane Austen anymore - then I spent a weekend in Bath!

From the moment I got there (reading Persuasion on the train of course!), I imagined what Bath would have looked like to Jane Austen. Along the way from the train station to my hotel, I saw things that I had read about hundreds of times. From Cheap Street to the Pump Room, I could find references from Northanger Abbey and Persuasion everywhere.

I picked up a leaflet for the Jane Austen Centre, and saw that they were doing a Jane Austen walking tour. We got to walk around Bath city centre seeing places that Jane Austen herself lived in the few years that she was in Bath, and where her fictional characters resided and socialised. The Royal Crescent, The Circus and the Assembly Rooms are all so grand and exactly the kinds of places I imagine Anne Elliot and Catherine Morland wandering around.

After that we headed to the Jane Austen centre to listen to a little talk, take a look around the exhibition and then indulge in a cream tea in the Regency Tea Room, followed by an open top bus tour around the city.

I can honestly say that I have absorbed more knowledge this weekend than I have in a really long time, not only about Jane, but about Bath as a city. I've never really considered myself as someone who is interested in history, but I found it really interesting learning about how Bath grew from a small market town to one of the most fashionable cities.

When I wasn't being a geek, I was lying in the sun on the green in front of the Royal Crescent, daydreaming of finding my own Captain Wentworth or Henry Tilney...