Warwick

On our way out of Shakespearesville we checked out a hotel we knew we couldn’t afford, but you’ve got to have dreams – maybe next time if we win Tatts..

Next stop was definitely home….

One could get very comfortable here…

although the heating bill could be a bit high.

This is Warwick Castle. It is a restored medieval castle and if you want a history lesson talk to Dr Google. We can only say that it is mind blowing, not in the same way as, say, Windsor Castle, but it represents a life style of an era. Much of it is recent restoration but it is well done and altogether worth seeing. The ‘scary’ dungeon tour is a bit over the top but it was fun nonetheless…

No photographs were allowed (or really possible in what was mostly darkness) which makes it a little hard to relay the effects, but I had my head on the chopping block and fortunately the lopper missed. But the moving seats got everyone else worked up as did the water splatter supposedly representing blood (but in the dark who could tell). We walked away unscathed.

The rest of the place is a museum of antiquity…

and I’ve only just scratched the surface. A piece ‘de resistance’ was thebuffet…

carved from one tree.

There’s often a downside to these things though. Wouldn’t have missed it but at over $120.00 to get in it was a little like I’d bought it.

We didn’t stay for the night show (which did cost more again), we missed the jousting but did witness an archer demonstrating the famed English longbow and a diabolical crossbow.

We were a bit time poor when we got to this place as we had a booking for this night further on near Worcester and given the relative hardship of finding economical and acceptable quality accommodation we had to move on.

Our next overnight didn’t compete with the castle but it did have a certain style  to it…

and proved to be quite comfortable after we actually found it. Talk about lost up country lanes in Smite (yes, that’s S. m. i. t. e). B & B and dinner was good too.

Next day takes us on to Stoke on Trent and what a surprise and delight that turned out to be. But just wait my impatient readers cos now its bedtime in Edinburgh, many days on from whence I’m reporting. Bear with me though because very shortly we do get to live in a castle.