Road Tripping to from Hampshire to Bath

July 29, 2025

Another out of order post, starting with some pics from the Four Seasons Hampshire; we landed in London and drove directly there, and it was like a brief stopover in heaven. More about it in the next post, but here I am in the garden and also below is Elowen watching the fireworks show they have every Saturday night (she was entranced).

A Jane picture book I picked up for E as a surprise and a fun cocktail, as well as the welcome madeleines and apple juice waiting for Elowen in the room.

More photos of us exploring the grounds.

The hotel is the most kid-friendly place I've ever been, and accordingly there are lots of activities just for them! For instance, grooming and walking the resident ponies in the stable. This is Milo and he was very chill...Elowen was over the moon to brush him and lead him around the stable courtyard. She loves animals so much.

And now, on to Bath! Bath is named for its Roman-built bath (starting as far back as 43 AD) and has some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in the world, where 1.17M liters of hot spring water fill the pools today. Accordingly it has a long history as a spa town, most of interest to me for its connections to Jane Austen; she lived in Bath at various periods of her life and also set parts of certain novels there. It's also a Unesco World Heritage site, in no small part because of its beautiful Georgian architecture. If you love history and beauty and English literature, Bath is the perfect vacation spot (it's also very walkable, making it even more perfect).

Below is the Royal Crescent, built between 1767 and 1774...now it's residences, a hotel, and a museum, and it's also one of the greatest examples of Georgian architecture in the world. It may also look familiar from various period movies and from Bridgerton. Many of the buildings are also built from Bath stone, a type of limestone, and it's what gives the buildings their unique and uniform appearance.

Below you have Elowen and I in front of the Bath Abbey, with the finest Tudor ceiling in England and France; though it fell into disrepair when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, Queen Elizabeth I licensed a nationwide collection to restore it (in 1573!). The restoration took 50 years and the church was later restored in the late 1800s.

And equally as majestic, Bernd das Brot, who I'm always tickled to see on TV--such a grumpy little loaf of bread.

Can't have too many pies or pavlovas either.

Our first day in Bath, we did a lot of walking just to soak the city in. It's truly lovely.

Elowen stopped to smell the many beautiful flowers and also enjoyed a local park, which was huge and teeming with lots of happy British children.

A brief stop in the Bath Cider house, which had lots of different options on tap--I'm always up to try a sweet and fruity cider.

One particularly exciting stop for me was Persephone Books, which I've wanted to visit for years. They're a female owned publishing house that prints mostly neglected and forgotten female writers from the mid-20th century, with a focus on domestic fiction and linked by the idea of "home." The books all have the same gray cover because the owner "had a vision of a woman who comes home tired from work, and there is a book waiting for her, and it doesn't matter what it looks like because she knows she will enjoy it."

The store is phenomenal for finding treasures, and I of course got a few books (my suitcase would weigh 56 pounds and that was mostly books, as you may have noticed I'm wearing the same outfit repeatedly...no room for clothes when you can buy novels!). It also just has a peaceful, feminine energy and I could have happily stayed in there for hours. (Note that I had to kick Elowen out with her Dr Pepper as I didn't trust her with it around all the lovely books.)

I can find Dr Pepper anywhere, it's a true talent.

At the Pulteney Bridge, built in 1774 and one of only four bridges in the world to have shops over it (another is in Venice). The weir below it is also the scene from Les Miserables where Javert commits suicide.

Look at these delicious little floral spring cakes! Yes, we got one.

We also strolled through the Bath Guildhall Market, in an 18th century building and the oldest shopping center in the city. It has 20 cute little booths selling everything from knitting supplies to tea to chocolate, and you can also get a cocktail.

Another view of the Abbey, and if you look closely you can see angels climbing a ladder to heaven.

And below are our rooms! We had a very large suite--it was literally the size of a small house, with a huge bathroom and two bedrooms. It was very comfortable, but the only downside was that the door to the outside was one that automatically swings shut--HARD. So it was hard to sleep, especially early in the morning as people kept up a steady stream of entrance and exit. On another stay, I'd ask for a room toward the back of the hotel to avoid that.

And on the way to Bath, we stopped at the George Inn, which claims to be the oldest pub in England and is well-known for its restaurant. It's a 14th century Tudor inn, originally built as a wool store for merchants coming into the town's wool fairs, and the kitchen uses local and fresh ingredients. We had beer bread with whipped beef butter, Scotch eggs, poached pears with raspberries and fresh cream, and a mushroom toastie with a farm-fresh egg. It definitely lived up to its reputation, and we got to chat with the young bartender who found our politics fascinating and was planning a trip to DC.