Stratford Upon Avon & Warwick
Its been a long time since this was last updated. I seem to start every entry with that which makes me think im lazy. Id think about that some more but i really can't be bothered.
Saturday 16th September we caught an early train from Manchester to Stratford Upon Avon. Our train went through Birmingham and we had to change train stations and we had about 25 minutes to do it. We only just managed to get the next train we needed by seconds, and im not exagerating. We had to run the last past and the train was moving before we even sat down. We got there early afternoon and checked into our Bed and Breakfast. A nice change from some of the other accommodation we have stayed in recently.
We then started looking around and walked down the street towards the Holy Trinity church, which is the site of Shakespeares burial site. We had a look in there and below are a photo of the outside of the church, and a picture of where he is buried.
We continued walking down the street and looked around. There were lots of nice things including theatres, shops etc. There were 3 main theatres in Stratford all showing various Shakespeare productions. One of them had Patrick Stewart in that was showing that day and another poster showed Ian McKellen, who coincidentally grew up in Wigan which is only about 20 minutes from where we currently live. Below are a couple of photos which really have no point.
Now we started to going to some of the places which Shakespeare made famous. The first one was his birthplace and childhood home. The interior of the houses are all done up with furniture from the period in which he would have lived which made it interesting to walk around. Its strange walking on a second floor and looking down seeing light between the floor board. They creaked too which was kinda uneasy.
The next place to see was Nash's House. Shakespeare purchased this house in 1597 and was also where he died in 1616. There are 3 gardens attached to the house. The first is a private garden which only people who go through the house have access too. The photo below is of this garden. The other gardens are public gardens and have statues from various works of Shakespeare.
Now is Halls Croft. This house apparently belonged to Shakespeare daughter. The outdoor yards of all these places were really well done. They are all really big which is a nice change from what we have seen over here in normal residential houses. The first photo is from the street and the second is looking through part of the garden back at the house. After this we had a nice tea and then had a relatively early night.
The next morning we saw Anne Hathaway's Cottage which was the most interesting of the houses that we saw. We were up early and enjoyed a nice cooked breakfast at our BnB. We were waiting at the cottage for the 10am opening on the Sunday morning. Before it had even opened about 5 buses had pulled up waiting to enter.
After the Cottage we walked to the train station and caught a train from Stratford Upon Avon to Warwick. We had prebooked tickets the Warwick Castle so wandered down there for a look. We had seen castles previously on our trip but this is the first castle that lived up to my expectation of what a castle is. The castle itself is owned by Madame Tussauds and a lot of wax mannequins were around depicting scenes from early days when the castle was in use. The castle had shows throughout the day and we saw an Archery show which really wasn't that exciting. A guy shooting arrows for half an hour gets a little boring. We saw a Birds of Prey show which had a bird trainer with different birds feeding them and getting them to fly around the castle. That was fairly spectacular actually. Even stranger was when we were working around later and the birds are actually tied by there legs to a standing pole and are on exhibition during the day for photos. No cage or anything around them, just them tied to a little bench they stand on. It just seemed bizarre. Another interesting thing we saw was the shooting off of a trebuchet. They have people running in the wheels to pull the firing arm backwards and then they let it off, hurling a 100kg rock over 300 metres. First 2 photos are of the castle itself. Third of some of the wax works. Forth of a White Head Bald Eagle. Fifth of the trebuchet.
After the castle we had a nice little tea at an Italian place in Warwick. Strangely it was 6pm on Sunday night and only about half the restuarants seemed open. Not much seemed to be going on in Warwick.
And for absolutely no reason at all... Finally the reason behind by height is explained. And no, thats not my pram.
Saturday 16th September we caught an early train from Manchester to Stratford Upon Avon. Our train went through Birmingham and we had to change train stations and we had about 25 minutes to do it. We only just managed to get the next train we needed by seconds, and im not exagerating. We had to run the last past and the train was moving before we even sat down. We got there early afternoon and checked into our Bed and Breakfast. A nice change from some of the other accommodation we have stayed in recently.
We then started looking around and walked down the street towards the Holy Trinity church, which is the site of Shakespeares burial site. We had a look in there and below are a photo of the outside of the church, and a picture of where he is buried.
We continued walking down the street and looked around. There were lots of nice things including theatres, shops etc. There were 3 main theatres in Stratford all showing various Shakespeare productions. One of them had Patrick Stewart in that was showing that day and another poster showed Ian McKellen, who coincidentally grew up in Wigan which is only about 20 minutes from where we currently live. Below are a couple of photos which really have no point.
Now we started to going to some of the places which Shakespeare made famous. The first one was his birthplace and childhood home. The interior of the houses are all done up with furniture from the period in which he would have lived which made it interesting to walk around. Its strange walking on a second floor and looking down seeing light between the floor board. They creaked too which was kinda uneasy.
The next place to see was Nash's House. Shakespeare purchased this house in 1597 and was also where he died in 1616. There are 3 gardens attached to the house. The first is a private garden which only people who go through the house have access too. The photo below is of this garden. The other gardens are public gardens and have statues from various works of Shakespeare.
Now is Halls Croft. This house apparently belonged to Shakespeare daughter. The outdoor yards of all these places were really well done. They are all really big which is a nice change from what we have seen over here in normal residential houses. The first photo is from the street and the second is looking through part of the garden back at the house. After this we had a nice tea and then had a relatively early night.
The next morning we saw Anne Hathaway's Cottage which was the most interesting of the houses that we saw. We were up early and enjoyed a nice cooked breakfast at our BnB. We were waiting at the cottage for the 10am opening on the Sunday morning. Before it had even opened about 5 buses had pulled up waiting to enter.
After the Cottage we walked to the train station and caught a train from Stratford Upon Avon to Warwick. We had prebooked tickets the Warwick Castle so wandered down there for a look. We had seen castles previously on our trip but this is the first castle that lived up to my expectation of what a castle is. The castle itself is owned by Madame Tussauds and a lot of wax mannequins were around depicting scenes from early days when the castle was in use. The castle had shows throughout the day and we saw an Archery show which really wasn't that exciting. A guy shooting arrows for half an hour gets a little boring. We saw a Birds of Prey show which had a bird trainer with different birds feeding them and getting them to fly around the castle. That was fairly spectacular actually. Even stranger was when we were working around later and the birds are actually tied by there legs to a standing pole and are on exhibition during the day for photos. No cage or anything around them, just them tied to a little bench they stand on. It just seemed bizarre. Another interesting thing we saw was the shooting off of a trebuchet. They have people running in the wheels to pull the firing arm backwards and then they let it off, hurling a 100kg rock over 300 metres. First 2 photos are of the castle itself. Third of some of the wax works. Forth of a White Head Bald Eagle. Fifth of the trebuchet.
After the castle we had a nice little tea at an Italian place in Warwick. Strangely it was 6pm on Sunday night and only about half the restuarants seemed open. Not much seemed to be going on in Warwick.
And for absolutely no reason at all... Finally the reason behind by height is explained. And no, thats not my pram.
