Warwick Castle & Stratford Upon-Avon & King Lear

Yesterday was another wonderful day trip. We pack so much into these days they are just so exhausting and I started out this one tired anyways. Our first stop was Warwick Castle. It was pretty touristy... in fact we were rather disappointed because we were the only group that wasn't a small children's field trip group. BUT! Then as we wandered out into the gardens and saw the birds of prey (there were like five sitting there tied up) we ran into David. He is the bird whisperer man at the Castle and he was just checking up on his birds before his one thirty show. Since we were leaving the castle before then we were sad we didn't get to see the excitement... well i was kind of sad but not really cuz birds aren't my thing. Then after we started some flirting with David he lead us out into this open field to let us hold the owl as a special treat. There were only like five of us who got to do this and it was definitely the highlight of the Warwick visit. We would stick out our arm, david would put a dead chick on our gloved hand, then Louie would fly out of the tree and onto our hand. It was pretty cool. David liked us a lot. In fact he wanted us to tag him in photos on facebook. We might need to cool off on flirting with the British guys at tourist attractions.

After that we drove over to Stratford Upon-Avon. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this place! It is crazy to think that I have seen where Shakespeare lived. For some reason I felt like this town was pretty different than other small English towns we have visited. It has more old 16th century buildings and it's much smaller in scale. It seems like a really peaceful place to live and it is home to the Royal Shakespeare Company(more on that later). Our first stop was Anne Hathaway's cottage. The gardens here were pretty cool and I can't imagine how beautiful all these places would be in the late spring or early summer with they are in bloom. I wished mom could have seen this garden. It reminded me a lot of her vegetable garden. Our tour guide in the cottage was insane. Dr. MacFarlane had to stand at the back of the group to suppress his giggling. She was making the tour all dramatic and she would maintain eye contact with individuals for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Definitely a highlight of the tour.

Next stop: the birth place of Shakespeare. They have this exhibit where you walk through and see a video in each room. I thought it was really well done. Definitely worth seeing. Then you walk out and go next door into the actual house where they have it restored to what it would have looked like when Shakespeare's family lived there. They even have a glove-maker working on the scene just as John Shakespeare would have been making gloves and upstairs two actors give a nice preview of a play by acting out a small part of a Midsummer Night's Dream. I love seeing these places because I feel like I have been reading Shakespeare left and right...which I have. I average 1.5 plays a week here. Sounds miserable but when you get to see all these sites like the Globe and Shakespeare's house it's so neat. After this stop we followed Doc. McF to the Nash House and New Place. The tour actually takes you through New Place, the house next door. The Nash house is the house Shakespeare bought before he died and then passed on to his daughter and her husband Thomas Mash, thus it is called the Nash house. Eventually the house was torn down because the neighbor was frustrated with people visiting the site and bothering him but there is a garden dedicated at the spot. New Place is a really cool historical old house that was there when Shakespeare purchased his house and I loved how they had restored it. It was in no way super tacky or touristy. We took some photos out front of here and then walked a few blocks to the Holy Trinity Church where he is buried. The bells were tolling outside and it was so gorgeous. I wished I could bottle up the moment, or like CJ says, a brain camera would have come in handy.

After we had about three hours to wander before we went to the theatre to see King Lear with the group. We stopped in at pound land to get some caffeine so we could stay awake through the production and then Laura, Cj and I headed up to street to Subway and the Pasty shop. Here is a little shout out to this store called Pasty Presto. Your traditional pasty is not only one of my favorite things, but when you sell them for one pound after 4:30 because you guys close at five, I love you even more. Then we went to subway and hung with the Cooper family for a little bit. We still had another two hours until the play started and boredom was beginning to set in so the three of us played a wonderful game of 1,2,3. This game is SO much better in a small town in England. We had some fine specimens to pick from as we watched out the window. This kept us entertained for a good forty minutes. Then we wandered some more but since everything was closing up (btw, EVERYTHING closes at five in these towns.) we walked down towards the river and saw that the MacFarlane family was eating dinner at the fish and chips place. We frantically waved at them and then played a little game of escalator in the window. They loved it. As the Doctor described later, it was dinner and a show. Needless to say we were pretty slap happy. So for the last little bit of time before King Lear began we just chilled out in the lobby of the theatre doing some reading.

The production of King Lear was really, really well done. I am loving Shakespeare so much more especially when I get to see productions of it. The characters were wonderfully cast and the theatre was sort of set in this industrial style and they put a WWI spin on King Lear to portray the theme of destruction. I thought for sure I would fall asleep because it was about three and a half hours but I didn't doze once. We got back to the London Centre at about 1 am and I climbed right into bed. It was a great day.

Shakespeare's grave

Shakespeare's birthplace

Anne Hathaway's cottage

Warwick Castle

Louie and I

confession: I am kind of afraid of birds

Check out the background

David, our bird friend