Online Travel Diary
• 30/8/2008 - Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon was my last stop in England, which was sad in a way (who can believe a holiday went so quickly?) but good in another way, because I'm ready to head home, see my dogs, sleep in my own bed, and not have to carry my possessions with me everywhere I go!
I caught a train from London to Stratford - a fairly easy proposition, with a train rather like a normal Melbourne train (but cleaner) rather than the fancier ones designed for the long trip north to Edinburgh. For example, the Edinburgh trains have refreshments trolleys and a cafe; this one had nothing of the sort. The trip to Stratford is about two hours from London, much of which is through suburban and semi-suburban areas.
The first thing to do upon arrival was, of course, to hike to the B&B (always seems miles away when you're lumping bags, but in reality not that far) and check in. I arrived to find that the last occupants of my room had accidentally absconded with the key, so the hosts gave me a front door key and said they would organise a replacement room key as soon as possible. In the meantime, they would make sure no-one went into my room. I wasn't enamoured of this idea but, short of sitting lunchless on my bed and wasting the afternoon, there wasn't much else to do, so I dumped everything and headed out into Stratford.
The B&B I stayed at - Adelphi Guesthouse - was nice, but not in the same league as Gallon House. Adelphi was nicely decorated, and the owners were nice enough, but it felt a bit like staying with your strict great aunt with lots of rules. They ask you to pre-order your breakfasts (Atholdene House in Inverness had the same policy), and the order form was....well, let's just say it was unnecessarily complicated, and leave it at that! When I went down to breakfast on the first morning, the host actually said to me 'Oh, you got the form right. About one in a hundred manage to do it properly.' (Unable to find a polite way to say 'Well, then, maybe you should change the bloody form!', I nodded politely). Rather than letting you sit wherever you like, if there are multiple people expected for breakfast at the same time, they put little numbers on the tables which correspond to your room number. The breakfasts were lovely, though; I had yoghurt followed by apple pancakes both mornings (the first morning, the pancakes came smothered in maple syrup and interlaced with slices of bacon; I couldn't face maple-flavoured bacon, so didn't eat it and specifically asked for none the next day).
Anyways, on the first afternoon, I walked down into the township, which really DOES have those old black-and-white style Tudor buildings you see in pictures - not every building, obviously, but enough to make you grin and think of Shakespeare. I grabbed some food, then went to see a thing called the 'Shakespearience', which is basically a multimedia presentation about Shakespeare; I'd read that it was really good, really interesting and well-worth seeing; it wasn't bad, but wasn't brilliant either. It consisted of a brief documentary about Shakespeare's life (filmed in Stratford, so it was cool to go around afterwards and think 'Hey, I recognise this spot!'), followed by excerpts from nine plays.
After the Shakespearience, I went down and did a cruise along the River Avon. This was (much to the disgust of a four year old boy who was among the other passengers) slow, gentle and peaceful. We passed weeping willows along the banks, parklands, the chain ferry (a cool 'ferry' which consists of a platform with rails that is drawn back and forwards across the river by means of a chain; the attendant slowly turns a handle to move the ferry across), and the back of Holy Trinity Church (where Shakespeare is buried). There were lots of ducks and swans, and it was nice to sit quietly and enjoy the view. There was an elderly gentleman also on the cruise, accompanied by a little dog named Patch (I told you previously - English people take their dogs everywhere!). Patch sat up on the seat beside him, and occasionally put her paws on the edge of the boat so she could peer over at the passing water. She was a friendly little thing, and kept wandering along the bench for a pat and to give my face a good wash.
After the cruise, it was time to walk along the river to The Courtyard Theatre, where I had tickets for 'The Taming of the Shrew'. I had dinner ('potatoes and mash') at the theatre's cafe, then had a bit of time to stretch my legs before the doors opened and we went in to find our seats. I'd booked mine on the Internet months ago, and was pleased; up on the balcony, front row, front and centre. The play was really good and very well done, although it was a bit harsher than I'd expected. I've never actually read 'Taming of the Shrew'; the closest I'd come was watching a modern (and very loose) interpretation '10 Things I Hate About You'. This film is based in an American high school and is all very light-hearted, with a desperate young swain paying the local tough guy to date the scariest girl in school so the way is clear for her younger sister to start dating. The play is a bit darker; the basic plot is the same (older sister must wed before younger is permitted to), but the older sister (Kate) is mildly psychotic and the guy who takes her on (Petruchio) 'tames' her by depriving her of food and sleep until she breaks down and agrees to anything he says (incidentally, this is apparently a technique used by falconers, and the fact that the play is based so strongly around the method has been taken by many scholars to suggest that Shakespeare himself was a keen falconer). The acting was superb, though, and very well done; I enjoyed the evening thoroughly, and was sorry to see it end.
The next day, I had a ticket on the hop-on, hop-off sightseeing bus which winds its way around the main tourist sites of Stratford. I rode the bus almost all the way around, to get a feel for the area and listen to the commentary, then got off at one of the last stops, Mary Arden's Farm. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother, and this property consists of the farmhouse where she grew up (furnished in period style), as well as period style gardens and farmyards. I watched a falconry display (although it was conducted with an owl, not a falcon - go figure!), had a quick wander through the house, then went for a walk through the old fashioned apple orchard, past assorted fields with livestock (pigs, donkeys, sheep, cattle, poultry). The gardens were lovely and I wished I had a little more time to spend there; if you lived nearby, it would make a nice day out, I think.
But with only one day in hand, I needed to move on, so it was back on the bus and off to the next stop - Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife; this was the house she grew up in (and, supposedly, where she and William courted - though, given that they married when he was 18 and she 26 and pregnant with his baby, you gotta wonder how much polite courting went on in her family home!). The house was furnished in period style, and they had a lady inside giving talks to the visitors; she was really good (a tiny bit odd, but very interesting) as she talked about the family and the way of life the house represents. The house was owned by Hathaways until the late 1800s, when it was bought by the Shakespeare Preservation Society (a body which still owns it, along with the other important Shakespeare-related buildings in the area). It has a gorgeous garden filled with the flowers and herbs that would most likely have been grown in Shakespeare's time; in the gift shop, you can buy packets of seeds with all the different varieties (not possible for me, of course, but I bet if you lived in England it would be a tempting souvenir for a gardener). Across the road was a lovely little tearoom where I had lunch, then it was back on the bus and back into the township for the next few properties.
In the space of about an hour and a half, I briskly visited the last three important 'Shakespeare houses', as they're known: Shakespeare's birthplace (the most crowded; I didn't spend much time there), Nash's House & New Place, and Hall's Croft. Nash's House is where Shakespeare's granddaughter - the only grandchild to survive to adulthood (and she died childless in the end, so there are no descendants of Shakespeare running around today) - lived with her husband; next door is a garden where Shakespeare's house, 'New Place' stood. 'New Place' was where he retired to when he left London and returned to Stratford, and it was the house where he died. It was pulled down in the 1800s by its owner, who was fed up with the tourist horde which, even then, kept coming around to see it! Hall's Croft was where Shakespeare's daughter Susannah (Elizabeth's mother) lived with her husband, a prosperous local doctor; it was newly built for the young couple so gives a good picture of what a wealthy family home would have looked like at the time. The gardens there were really lovely, too.
After finishing up with the Shakespeare properties, I walked down to see the Holy Trinity Church (where Shakespeare is buried) - a lovely church, where the volunteer 'staff' positively encourage you to take photos (I've found that the smaller churches don't mind, while the larger ones like Westminster Abbey prohibit it). You pay a pound for the privilege of wandering down to see Shakespeare's grave (which is set in the floor, but roped off so no-one tromps blithely across it); he's buried with his wife, daughters and sons-in-law around him (he had one son, Hamnet, who died aged eleven and is not buried with the rest of the family; historians believe he died of the plague, and would have been buried with other victims in a lime-lined pit outside the town - something which was done to try to halt the spread of the plague).
After Holy Trinity, I walked back up to the theatre to see if there were any tickets available for that night's performance (Hamlet), but there weren't. They had a line of people waiting to see if any tickets became available (eg, people asking for refunds because they could no longer attend that night); this apparently has a reasonable chance of success, but I decided I didn't want to spend my last evening in England sitting in a queue with no guarantee of accomplishing anything! Instead, I went back down to the river, paid 50p to get the chain ferry across it (for no reason other than wanting to go on the chain ferry) and strolled down the river banks. I crossed back over by bridge, wandered around the town a little, grabbed dinner, then wandered back up to the B&B to pack. It's probably a good thing I didn't go see Hamlet - I had to haul everything out, rearrange it so that everything I might need to declare is in one bag, and toss out all the miscellaneous junk you accumulate along the way (empty water bottles, maps of various attractions, a London tube map, etc). Doing that kept me happily occupied until it was time for bed.
All I did this morning was grab breakfast then head out to catch the train back to London. I got to Heathrow ridiculously early (I was here at 2pm, and my flight due to leave at 10pm); I went to the Singapore Airlines desk to ask when I'd be able to check my baggage in, and the gentleman there offered to swap me on to an earlier flight to Singapore (I'll still arrive in Melbourne at the same time, but at least this way I get to hang around in Singapore rather than Heathrow, and was able to check my bags in HEAPS earlier). I'm at Singapore Airport now, with a couple of hours to go until my flight; I've just been on one of the free city tours which the local tourist board offers tourists who are in transit. It's basically just a bus trip down into the heart of Singapore and back, with commentary (there are no stops anywhere), but it was a way to occupy some time and was quite interesting. Unfortunately, the bus had really comfortable seats, so I zoned out for a bit there....Anyway, now I'm off to get some food (I've still got a couple of hours before I need to worry about boarding my flight); my stomach can't make up what meal we should be having, but it 's sending signals that it bloody well wants something!
That's all for now - I'll see everyone on Sunday! |
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