Caterham House Stratford-upon-Avon

With time rapidly dwindling I went down to Banbury way this afternoon to visit my brother et famille before I leave, taking the opportunity to say goobye to two young nephews - one of whom was able to appreciate some of the implications of what I am doing, "But what if you get sick?" he asked. :-)

Back up to Stoke in the late evening. Last day of preparations tomorrow.

... with a strange concoction of multiple types of cereal. Jess thinks Bernie is weird. We then made our way to Stratford-upon-Avon. We arrived at about 10am, after just making our train in the morning. We appear to have running for the train down to a fine art. We checked our luggage in at a rug store in town, and hopped on a tour bus to Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife, and this is the house she grew up in ...

... Pliny) which were used in its construction. Here endeth the lesson. But ...I was very excited about it! I have wanted to see it for a very long time. Almost equally as thrilling was the chained library which held a book from the 8th century, a copy of the first English translation of the Bible by Wycliffe, and a copy of the first English dictionary! Are you all excited yet? No? Oh well. I will try to make my next entry a bit less nerdy.

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Took us a couple of hours and we got the audio tour included in the price which made it very interesting. It is a ruined castle and huge. It used to have a moat and lake around it. The Norman Keep is huge and walls were 8' thick. We saw the kitchen with huge fireplaces and bread ovens. Robert ...

... on doing the 4 hour walk (9 miles) but due to the bad directions ended up getting lost, going to village that wasn't even on our map and did the 2 hour walk in 3-1/2 hours and walked about 10 miles. We started off uphill to the top of Dover Hill where snow totally covered the ...

... ticket to London on the National Express Coach for 13 pound 50 for both of us. Got it heaps cheaper because booking 3 days in advance ($31). Went for a hot chocolate at Costa’s in a lovely Tudor building. Changed $200 Aus to 79 pounds, bought a vegetable pastie and then went through Shakespeare’s birthplace 9 pounds ($21). Lovely home from the 1500s ...

... we were quite damp. It was fun though and pretty walking across fields with stone walls and through forests.













Of course, there was a lot of slippery mud. Stephen's shoes didn’t have a lot of grip so there were always expletives coming from ...

... the two, had holes in the walls called murder holes to pour boiling water or shoot from to kill them.








We then climbed up and walked along the Ramparts and Towers along the whole front wall. It was so windy and cold. All day we were freezing and our feet were numb. It was about 2 degrees C.





Stratford-upon-Avon, England, United Kingdom hilaryramsey

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We then went home and went for a drive to Bourton-on-the-Water. We paid 3 pounds to park the car for 3 hours and walked into the village called the Venice of the Cotswolds due to the number of little bridges over the shallow little stream running through the middle. Has lovely pubs and beautiful shops. Stopped for lunch and ...

... Castle is huge and imposing. We walked around cute little streets and went to a tearoom and had tea with scones and jam. Nathan had a hot chocolate with whipped cream. Took a photo of this really crooked shop. Drove the 1-1/2 hours to Stratford. Nathan fell asleep the last ½ hour. Stratford looks very cute in the dark. Stephen is walking distance to the river Avon and town centre and lives at 22 ...