Day Trippin'

Nobody loves a good bargain as much as I do, so last June when I saw a Living Social deal for a day trip to the Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon for only 39 pounds, I jumped on it. Well, with all the craziness of the last few weeks, I accidently let my deal expire. But the lovely people at the tour company allowed me to extend my voucher, and so on September 29, I finally took my fun day trip through some of the most beautiful countryside and into the town that birthed one of the greatest writers of all time. It was a dream come true for this romantic literature lover!

Of course, I had to take 9,000 photos (ok, not quite 9,000 but it was definitely excessive), so I think the best way to share my day is through a series of photos and captions. I'll fill in a few details here and there to set the scene a bit.

I met the tour bus at the Victoria coach station, which was just a bus, tube and short walk from where I live in south London. I must admit I was a little nervous about going on a day tour all by myself, but then I remembered how keen I am to finding the one other single person at a given event and making friends. So that's what I did. I met and sat next to a wonderful, elderly woman named Pat, who was traveling through London on a whirlwind trip around Europe. Pat must have been in her early 80s and is from Australia, and she is certainly an adventurous woman! After losing her husband a few years back, Pat decided it was time to take on the world and go see what's out there. She's literally traveled all over the world--and all by herself! On the drive out to the Cotswolds, in between lots of talk from our chatty, theatrical tour guide David, I enjoyed hearing about her many travels and felt quite inspired by her courage and independence, especially at her age.

The first village we visited in the Cotwolds is called Burford. We didn't stop long, but we did have time to follow David on a quick tour of a gorgeous old church, St. John the Baptist. They began building the church back in 1175 but it took about 300 years to finish it. David knew all sorts of random facts about the church and gave us quite the animated tour.

St. John the Baptist Church Burford. According to our tour guide, the tradition old English churches didn't have big, pointy steeples like this one has. They should be more squared off, like a castle. This church used to look like that, but some French people got involved somehow and remodeled the top of the church, adding the high peaks. I rather like them pointy, myself. 

Also according to the tour guide, Rosemary is always planted at places where people will want to remember things, like churches and memorials. Since it has such a distinct smell, you are supposed to visit the site, break a little piece of Rosemary off and smell it, thereby locking the memory in your mind forever.  Ah, so THAT's what Ophelia was talking about... 

Some rich people had this tomb and small chapel  built for themselves in the church, because that's the best way to go straight to Heaven, right? So the old time church goers would come into tomb chapels like this to pray and be close to these dead rich people who they believed were certainly in Heaven with God, hoping these dead rich people would lend them a hand.

Eventually, the old time church goers got really desperate and decided to go ahead and take the skeletons out of the tombs, so they could actually touch the bones of the dead rich people (which would certainly make their prayers come true, right?). Happy Halloween!

We had a few minutes to do some power shopping I mean, sightsee, so I ran off to the closest shops I could find and of course found a couple things I just couldn't live without, including some super cute tea spoons (as in spoons for tea, not for measuring) and some onion marmalade (I don't actually know what this is, but it seemed very British, and so I bought it and plan to feed it to my sister when she comes for Christmas!).

Our tour guide David is explaining how the old stones expand or shrink with the changing climate each winter and summer, so twice a year, a village man will come around and loosen or tighten the bolts in all the houses. 

A bit of a post-power-shopping high! 

Then, it was back on the coach and off to Bibury for lunch.

Our Bus!

Bibury was straight out of a fairy tale! 

These cottages are rented out by the government to artists and writers and other lovely people for a very small fee...but in return, they maintain the properties to very high standards. 

We stopped at the bridge to feed the ducks. :)

I want to live in one of these cottages!

I was being a creeper taking photos of windows, but they all had lovely lace curtains. 

Stone roofs

We walked through a nice little creek to get to lunch.

Lunch was here at the Swan Hotel, right next door to a trout farm. Guess what we had for lunch?

The grounds of the Swan were just enchanting

Did I mention our tour guide was a bit eccentric? Here he is drinking from the stream... 

I think the Secret Garden is through there ;)

What a nice place for a cuppa

Lunch! It looks kinda gross in this photo, but it was actually really pretty. And the trout was delish! Getting through the bones was a bit tricky, but David showed us how to properly debone them. What's missing from this photo is my refreshing glass of pinot. :)

After lunch, we headed to our last Cotswolds village Bourton-on-the-Water. Again, our tour guide had some things he just had to show us, so we were stuck with him for a while, but then had about 20 minutes to wander around. It just wasn't enough time to really see the village, so I spent my time taking in the scenery and snapping a few quick pics.

Duck Race? 

Ahhh, duck race. Too cute!

Bourton-on-the-Water has a lovely little steam that runs through the center of the village with quint walking bridges you can cross. Very sweet and calming.

Another perfect place for a cuppa

I loved the willows 

 That concluded our brief visit to the Cotswolds, so now it was off to see Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. Since I teach Shakespeare both back home ("Hamlet") and was currently teaching "Macbeth" here in London, I was particularly excited for this part of the day. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stop and see very much, so I've decided a return trip is a must-do before I head back to the states. But we did get to see Shakespeare's birthplace, where he went to grammar school, where his home was after he retired and came back from London, the home where his daughter and her doctor husband lived, and his grave. And we did it all in under two hours!

A statue of the jester. All Shakespeare's tragedies have a comic character, a jester of sorts, to break the tension and make the audience laugh at the insanity of human nature amidst the tragedy.

Amen

William Shakespeare's birthplace

Looking down the high street. 

A tribute to Shakespeare's friend, contemporary and competition, Christopher Marlowe.

Some of the amazing architecture 

What a great door!

The town hall 

Keeping watch on the streets, probably coming up with lots of good ideas for characters while people watching :)

There are tributes to Shakespeare all over town

I just liked the look of this place.

This empty space is where Shakespeare's home during his retirement was. It burned down and now they are doing a big excavation project on the site.

More neat buildings

The gates of the grammar school Shakespeare attended

Wood pegs, not nails, were used in these buildings. 

The house where Shakespeare's daughter lived with her husband, who was a doctor. We stopped here for a look around a scone in the back gardens. 

The back gardens. I love these wild English gardens! Pat told me what a few of these plants are, but I've forgotten now. 

The back of her house.

Happy days in the garden

I was nosing around the gift shop at Shakespeare's daughter's house when David popped his head in and said, "Hey, English teacher, want to go see Shakespeare's grave?" Of course! So a handful of us literally ran down the street for a quick look into this church where Shakespeare is buried. It was incredible!  

Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare is buried.

Shakespeare is buried beside Anne Hathaway, his wife, and his children 

The British had a knack for moving around people's graves after they had died.  Many of the great writers are now buried at Westminster Abbey in Poets' Corner, but Shakespeare did not want to be moved there after he'd passed. So he wrote this little diddy and had it engraved on his small head stone. This is a larger copy of what it says...sorry it's blurry! Here's how I'd translate this for my students: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake, you're forbidden from digging up my ashes that are buried here. You will be blessed if you leave these stones alone, and you'll be cursed if you move my bones."

To the left is Anne Hathaway's grave.

An original King James bible! WOW!

I saw this pub on the way out of town...The Encore. Yes, let's do this again, please!

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired, and the bus was much more quiet on the ride back to London. Even David stopped talking! When we arrived back at Victoria coach station, I said goodbye to my new friend Pat. I tried to convince her to join Facebook, but she said computers were just too confusing for her. And besides, she didn't have any time for that. Tomorrow, she was on her way to Singapore for a Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel, where this signature drink was invented. Just another thing to cross off her bucket list, she said. We hugged, and I wished her well and watched her march off confidently into the dusky London night.

Between the gorgeous, rolling hills and quaint stone cottages of the Cotswolds, the lively literary history of Shakespeare's Stratford, and Pat's ageless gumption and energy, I couldn't help but feel inspired as I headed home from yet another whirlwind day trip.