Show Us Your Life= Favorite Vacation Spots

It's Show Us Your Life Friday over at Kelly's Korner but today we are talking about favorite vacation spots. I love traveling, more than words could ever express. I love planning the trip, going on the trip, scrapbooking about the trip. Oh, how I love it! My family did not travel all that much growing up. When we did travel, however, we went to Civil War battle sites and cemeteries 'housing' our dead relatives. Isn't shocking how I became a history professor?

When I met Hubby, I told him that I want to travel, end of story. I don't have to stay at The Plaza every time, but I want to travel. In our 5 year marriage we have traveled all over the country, and once out of the country, and that finally brings us to my favorite vacation spot EVER...Bath England.

Hubby & I took a trip to England about two years after we got married. It was by far the most spontaneous thing we both have ever done. I happened to be perusing Expedia for cheap airline tickets, and found REALLY cheap tickets from Houston to London. Then the wheels started turning, could I find a good hotel, where exactly was everything in London, could we take a day trip out of the city, etc..

We booked in December, we left for London over our Spring Break in March...good time to go to England, still a bit cool, but definitely not crowded!

We spent our time in London, site seeing, going to museums, walking the streets, eating lunches in the various parks. All failed in comparison to our day trip to Bath. I have wanted to travel to Bath since I was in junior high and fell in love with Jane Austen. Knowing that she wrote some of her work in Bath made it all the more alluring.
We arrived in Bath a little after lunch after spending our early morning in Salsbury (another fabulous English village) and Stonehenge (another post in and of itself!). We got off the bus and this was the first thing we saw. In the center is the roof to the Roman baths, far right is part of Bath Abbey. The yellow lab in the picture followed us almost the entire day. Many of our photos have the dog in them. He was chasing a lot of ducks, which flew away and when we toured the Baths, found them lounging happily in the warm waters.
This is the entrance to the Pump Room and the Roman Baths. There is a small museum about the Roman occupation of England, history of the baths, etc.

The pump room, which has been used several times in various English films, and by Jane Austen herself is a fabulous ballroom with a large fountain where patrons can drink the supposed cure-all waters of the Roman Baths. We tried some, and it tasted like West Texas water warmed up--i.e kind of chewy, little bit sulfury and long lasting flavor!

Around the Bath and the Abbey is a mixture of gift shops, small restaurants and various businesses. Bath has the old warm charm that one dreams about.
In my head I knew I was walking the same streets of Jane Austen and other various English historical figures, but in my heart I was hoping to see someone in costume walk around every corner. While we were there we saw an older couple performing songs for the tourists..we ate some pizza from a mom-and-pop English vendor--it was fabulous! We sat at a small cafe and Hubby drank tea whilst I had some hot chocolate..
You can take many tours around Bath, several of which are Jane Austen walking tours. I bought a book on



The Jane Austen Center..all Jane Austen, in bath= My little heaven!
I still cruise the web looking for good deals to England, and am constantly looking at real estate in Bath. I have already told Hubby to be prepared once we either retire or make way more money to spend weeks of his life in the beautiful city of Bath!