Adventures with Jane ~ The JASNA Tour 2025!

So, finally, after years of doing various Jane Austen treks on my own, I was finally able to take the JASNA tour this May. And what a delight! Great itinerary, great accommodations, food, and brilliant company! Celebrating Austen’s 250^th, we toured the various locales of her life and works, and always with the feeling of Jane herself looking over one’s shoulder, wondering what all the fuss was about…

Highlights are too hard to list in order of preference – each day a new adventure – and rather like being asked which is your favorite Austen novel, the answer always being “the one I have just finished” – the best of the tour was each new day.

I will say that being able to be the first to go into the 8 College Street address in Winchester where Austen passed away on July 18^th 1817 was the most emotional – more on that soon – but it was a surprise to all of us that the College had worked so hard on getting it ready before expectations, and we were ushered in…

I shall try to sum up each day with a few pictures – I took 1227 in total [yikes!] and shall not burden you with all that [I have a penchant for windows and doors – and goodness knows where they are actually located…] – so here goes, as I start the course of my adventure, arriving in London several days early to visit sites with friends…

This is how you know you are in England:

DAY 1: Arrival, Lack of Sleep, Kensington walks

Arrived at my Kensington hotel but unable to check in until 3:00pm so wandered around on my own. I had lived in this Cromwell Road area as a student in 1968 [and where I met my husband] – so like to stay in this area when in London – changed a good deal, but the V&A and Prince Albert Hall are a short walk away and did this until lack of sleep set in:

V&A:

Cartier sold out, so I skipped through the Fashion Exhibit: was lucky to see this as it was closed to visitors just a few days later – a few favorites:

Then this, which I could look at for hours…:

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Royal Albert Hall, where I confess to never having been!

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And this, proof of how very civilized the Brits are…

And to sleep to prepare for another day …”Oh! to be in England…”

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