Weekend Trip #1 - Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick Castle

Okay, this is a long one. If you manage to get to the bottom, there's a special prize for you though.

As I said in the last blog, the company has given me a car. As luck goes, here's what they gave me..

Sporty huh? Oh yeah, and realized the antenna is gone, so I get to listen to the one AM radio station that comes in until I get that fixed.

Day 1 with the car:

Yep, snow. England is going through an unusual cold spell at the moment so the day I get the car we are hit with a blizzard. Since the temperature in our area doesn't normally remain below freezing, they don't do anything with the snow as they think it will just melt quickly anyway. Due to the cold spell, it ices over instead!

I get the keys from our HR woman and head out to the car (4pm, dark), find the car by hitting the panic button on the key fob, and jump in......... the passenger seat. Hmm.. things aren't boding well for a safe journey home.

It's easy to think about everything and say, well it's simple enough, everthing is just on the opposite side. Right. Now put that into practice. Ignore everything you've known your entire life. Come to England and see how long it is before you start looking the right way before crossing the street. Now jump in a car, in the dark, on icy roads and drive yourself home!

Thank God for GPS! and the internet, for giving us the European maps. Traffic is horrible at rush hour, rivaling Atlanta traffic even. That's actually a good thing though, because I only have to make decisions at 15-20 MPH as opposed to 70 MPH (the speed limit when no sign is posted here in the UK). The roundabouts are the most stressful part of driving - there seems to be one every 2-3 miles and there are roads that shoot off of them every few feet. Roundabouts vary in size, they aren't all like the one you see in National Lampoons European Vacation, sometimes they're just a concrete circle in the ground - 5 feet across and 3 inches high - but it's still a roundabout, although most of them are rather large with 4 or 5 exits off of them.

I did have a little bit of a "look kids, there's Big Ben!" moment on my first trip home though: the road to our flat is immediately after exiting a roundabout. So you literally have to jump into the roundabout, shoot off the 2nd exit, get to the right lane immediately and make the turn. Well, I got it the 3rd time around. I could see the flat, I just couldn't get there the first two times...

I had a whole week to practice, so with the wagon fueled up we're ready for our first weekend daytrip! First plan, hit Birmingham - the second largest city in England. I run it by the girls at work and they laugh and say, "Why would you go to Birmingham???" I bump into a few other people at work and they all have the same response.. Well, I'm determined we at least go for dinner since there is an Indian dish called Balti that supposedly originated here.

With that said, I get opinions from everyone on where we should visit, Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick castle were mentioned - so, with a little research, we're in.

First stop, Warwick Castle. Built in 1068 by William the Conqueror, with many restorations over the years. Here's some pics from that visit:

Ashley in the stocks:





The main living quarters entrance:



Library in the living quarters:




One of the many bedrooms, this particular one was given to the Duke of Wales since he visited the castle so often. The woodwork throughout this entire bedroom was amazing. The bed is a pretty good example:




Ashley, beginning our journey to the top of the towers! They warn you before you begin that it's over 500 steps or so on spiraling, STEEP steps. They weren't kidding:





A look back down the first stairwell....




Whew, first break, we took a pic of ourselves a quarter of the way up:

Steps to the next level, good thing Earl of Warwick thought to install handrails :)

To give you a little perspective of how tight the stairwells in the tower are.. onto the final steps:



Wow, we're at the top. The second tower's stairwell was no joke; I didn't think we were ever going to make it to the top. But, check out the views! This is a shot looking down to where we took the pic of ourselves that I posted above:



A pic of the oldest and original section of the castle:

A look down on the living quarters:

Caesar’s Tower, dungeon in the basement (which was blocked off when we went):



Oh yeah, didn’t mention the weather on the day of our trip. This is typical of what we’ve seen almost everyday. Foggy, mists of rain/snow flurries. You can really see it in this pic of Warwick Cathedral, located in town:

That will do it for pics of the castle. There were many more taken, but it’s too much work to post them all! Overall, we really enjoyed the castle and reading the history that took place there. Check out the Wikipedia page to read more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwick_Castle

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Next, we drove about 10 miles west of Warwick and visited the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford-Upon-Avon. We bought a ticket that gave us access to the home he was born in, the home he retired in and the home of his son-in-law, a prominent doctor at the time.

Ashley and I are certainly not experts on Shakespeare, we didn’t even bother to research anything about the significance of the homes we were visiting prior to going. It was great; I looked at Ashley on our way to Nash’s House and was like “So what’s the deal with this place?” She responds “I don’t know.. it was 3 for 1 on the ticket.” Haha, well, that works for me. I like a deal.

Each place had very knowledgeable guides (as far as we know), some even dressed in period clothing, that gave you a thorough overview of the history of the home, the significance and an idea of life in the time of Shakespeare.

Pictures weren’t allowed inside of the homes, but here’s some of the outside for the rest of you. At least you won’t be as ignorant as we were if you ever get a chance to visit.

Shakespeare’s birthplace. Pretty self-explanatory:

Front of the home:

Nash House/New Place. This is where Shakespeare retired and ultimately died in 1616. His wife Anne is also believed to have died here in 1623. The guide at this place was really long-winded, but gave a pretty good history of Shakespeare’s life and how he came to be successful, as well as discussing some of the controversies of the Shakespeare family.

Side view and gardens:


The final destination on our 3 for 1 ticket! Hall’s Croft. Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah married a Cambridge educated doctor, Dr John Hall. John Hall bought and enlargened this home, with portions of it dating back to the 1500’s. Some great paintings from the 16th and 17th Century are here as well, again no pics on the inside, but here’s the outside:


A cool tree in the backyard:


Finally, with a headache from ALL of the knowledge we now possess of Shakespeare, we hit up the oldest pub in Stratford-Upon-Avon for a beer before our trip home:

On our way out of town we did manage to catch a glimpse of Ye Olde Pizza Hut:

So that's all for our first trip. We probably took another 100 pics to chronicle our adventure, someday we'll post them all up on Kodakgallery or something for those of you that just haven't had enough!

As promised, British word of the week: Gobsmacked.


Used in a sentence: I'd be gobsmacked if half of you read this entire long-winded post!

Next week, we're thinking Bath or Salisbury... until then.