Yesterday, the day was so jam packed there was no time to blog. Grab some tea and biscuits and get comfy- it'll be a wee bit long today.
We had a wonderful day as we toured Cotswold with a BRILLIANT local named Tom. He has lived there his whole life and he gave wonderful commentary as we visited different sights and towns in Cotswold (
http://www.the-cotswolds.org/top/english/intro.php). We started by visiting Dover hill and learned of games that have been organized there for hundreds of years. Hay was still laying on the green field from the games on the last Friday of May. For one of the games, the players pad their shins with hay for a game that involves kicking the shins of your opponents until they fall (yes, they still play this game today). OUCH! After getting those images out of our head, we visited a few quaint towns were we wandered around. We saw some fantastic thatched roof houses and the beautiful flowers were abundant. Just as you would imagine the countryside- little cottages, surround by beautiful blooms. It was a lovely day!
After arriving back in Stratford we dropped off a couple of things at the hotel. Then we got take away fish and chips and sat in the park eating and watching. No time for a sit down meal because we were seeing Shakespeare's The Merchants of Venice at the Shakespeare Royal Theater. It was.....innteerresting........ First, I have to admit that reading Shakespeare in high school was no easy task for me. Thank heavens for cliff notes. So, between the accents (which I am usually mesmerized by) and the Shakespearean language I got muddled up a few times. I did get the gist of the play and I thought how they presented it was quite good. All in all a night well spent.
Today we hung around Stratford Upon Avon and did all things Shakespeare. We started by visiting his birth home. His father was a successful leather worker who made gloves. Some had pearls or stones. He continued to add to the family home until it was big for the time. It had lovely gardens surrounding it. Wonder if similar ones were around in his time. Didn't know Shakespeare married at 18 years old to a woman who was 26 years old (I'm pretty sure that fact that she gave birth 6 months later could have influenced that). Also didn't know that he had twins. Lots of info about him and his life while at the house and on the two hour walking tour we took after it. Our guide was a cheerful local who was very excited to share all that she knew about the town she loved. We saw where Shakespeare's grand house was (the one he bought after returning from London), the houses of his 2 daughters and the church where he is buried. He paid a large sum to be buried in the church because he didn't want his bones dug up (at the time, graves were repurposed by digging up old bones, burning them and burying new people in those graves). After the tour gave us more information than our brains could process, we decided to take in some more. We got on the hop on hop off bus and took it out to Anne Hathaway's house (he wife's house). It had LOVELY gardens. The house itself was deceiving because it was built on after she left. When she was there, it only had 2 rooms. It was worth the ride to see, though. ESPECIALLY the gardens. Then we rode around the rest of the bus route, enjoying the sun and breeze on the open upper deck. Quite nice. We decided to skip Mary Arden's house (his mother's house). Instead we decided to stroll the streets and do some window shopping (and some real shopping). We also took a boat ride down the canal. Time well spent. Tomorrow off to Bath.
Shakespeare's house
Anne Hathaway's house
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