Ladies' Weekend: High Tea & Jane Austen

The weekend after Christmas brought more girl time and foodie adventures. I have been eager to visit Borough Market since I first began my research for this move, but I didn't want to go until I had someone with me who would enjoy it as much as I would. I also heard that while the produce is exorbitantly priced, going for lunch is both reasonable and delicious.

We took the tube down to Bank so that we could walk across London Bridge on the way there.

I won't lie, going on Saturday after Christmas was not my wisest move as tour guide. We barely saw the market at all through the throngs of overcoated bodies. It was overwhelming to be smashed in with so many people and we kind of wanted to get in and get out as soon as possible. Still, the visit accomplished something I've been craving since the beginning of November: a true corned beef sandwich!

crowd crush

Borough Market and the Shard in the background

From the market we headed to another London landmark: Buckingham Palace.

The Palace is closed for visitors right now so we just walked in front of it and across Green Park to our afternoon reservation for tea at the Park Lane Hotel. My parents stayed at the Park Lane Hotel on their honeymoon 31 years ago, so this was particularly important to my mom. Since formal high tea is also on the London and Beyond checklist, I knew that this was the perfect opportunity.

Janis had never been to tea before, so this was even more special. Because it was still the Holiday Season, we were able to order the festive tea menu (see, it really is a thing everywhere) which included some wintry tea sandwiches and special desserts.

delicious tea varieties!

Our second sojourn out of London came the next day when we took the train to Bath. This day is a prime example of how sometimes I think I have it together and I really, really don't. Once again we had to catch the bus early on a Sunday morning and rare busses meant that we literally had to run to catch our train and barely made it. We jumped on the first carriage with an open door because I could already see the station employees closing compartments. The train started moving before we'd even made it to our carriage and found our seats! (FYI, if you're traveling from London to Bath, keep hold of your ticket as it is literally your way out of the station once you arrive. I did not realize this and left our tickets on the train, which had already gone on when I ran back to try to retrieve them. Luckily I found an understanding station agent who took care of us without asking too many questions.)

The most popular tourist spots in Bath are the cathedral and the Roman baths. As it was Sunday, the cathedral wasn't really an option and honestly, I don't really care about the baths. What we went for was the Jane Austen experience! Austen visited Bath in her youth and lived there for five years later in life, when she apparently lost her admiration for the place as her family's social standing slipped and it became less of a holiday for her.  Still, two of her novels are set in this quaint town and it is home to both the Jane Austen annual festival and the Jane Austen centre, our destination for the day.

Jane welcomes all of her visitors herself!

Austen's writing desk and a room dedicated to her work

Regency dress up!

We attempted to do the self-guided Jane Austen walking tour of the city, but quickly realized we didn't care that much and just went to the museum experience. It was after the curator's lecture and a short film, as we were walking through the period costumes and artifacts, that I realized I had accidentally booked the wrong return train and we'd already missed it! I was embarrassed by this oversight, but it worked out just fine as we just boarded the train at the time we thought we'd booked and there were no further issues.

Our Ladies' weekend was successful: 2 days, and 3 checkmarks on the London and Beyond list! Plus an evening of relaxing with a movie at home and some really good food!