Stratford on Avon June 12, 2003
including Warwick Castle

We wanted to get out of London and the Golden Tours (a.k.a. Gray Line) trip to Stratford on Avon and Warwick Castle seemed like the best deal.  James didn't like the early start (our pickup was 8:05), but he got some more sleep on the bus (so did I).

We had quite a ride through the Cotswold hills, which are very beautiful, but then we stopped for a visit to Oxford.  It's a very beautiful campus, with a lot of very old buildings.  This building is important because they filmed portions of the Harry Potter series in it.  I just thought it was a very neat looking building.

Part of the visit was this old room which actually is a dining hall for the students during the normal year.  I wasn't sure I was going to be excited about eating dinner every night on these benches with no backs, but that's what this hall provided.

The next stop was Stratford on Avon where we got a tour of Shakespeare's house and then an opportunity to eat lunch.  While this looks like a very pleasant house, you need to realize that the building that had been next door (with no room between them) has been removed to minimize danger due to fire.

The Avon is a very busy place.  There's a canal system connected to it, and a very busy park just to the right of the picture shown on the left.  Note that on the far bank are little canal boats (see detail shown to the right) just like Mother and I took down the Erie Canal last summer.

The piéce de resistance for me was Warwick Castle.  We had visited Warwick during our Easter sojourn to London many years ago, but spent most of the time down town, not out at the castle.   Note carefully that the trench in front of the castle is not a moat that has been dried up, the river is about 150' below this level, so it never was filled with water.

Inside the castle they have a good number of exhibits.  Some of these are wax figures that are extremely realistic.  Turns out that this is one of Madame Tousoud's authentic locations (many of the wax museums that carry that name have nothing to do with the founder).

The picture to the right is not included because it's a fantastic picture, but to prove to you that we didn't just steal some pictures off the Internet and paste our words to them.  Yes, we really were there!