Easter with Shakespeare, a Medieval Castle, a Giant Horse and a Bunch of Stones!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for us. It started with an overnight trip to Cork on the weekend before Easter where we raced around, visiting as many people as possible and only spend two hours tops with anyone.

The following week was filled with getting ready to go away and the odd night with our friend Lucy from NZ and her friend Kim staying over in between their travels around Ireland.

After handing over the keys to Lucy, her boyfriend Martin, and their friends Kim and Alex to stay at our place over Easter, we flew over to London and caught the bus up to Oxford on Holy Thursday night, to be greeted by more Kiwi friends, Emily and Peter, around midnight. These wonderful friends had us stay at their place for the entire of the Easter break, and even drove us around as we visited Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwick Castle, Uffington White Horse, Stonehenge and of course Oxford! You can read more about what we got up to in those places and see some photos by clicking on the place names below.

Stratford-Upon-Avon

Those who know me at all will know that I was in my own little heaven in this lovely little town being the hometown of Shakespeare. There are so many Shakespearian things to see there but, as we had a couple of time constraints due to the time we got there and the fact that I went to Church at 3pm (not to mention actually finding a Catholic Church here with a service at 3pm!), we stuck to the most important/interesting sights (in my opinion): Anne Hathaway's Cottage (where Shakespeare's wife grew up and was wooed by him), and Shakespeare's own birthplace - two charming houses with interesting insights into what it was like growing up in his time. The birthplace in particular has a fascinating exhibition before going into the house.
The day was an absolutely gorgeous one so we ate dinner outside, washed down with a cold beer, and then topped the day off by seeing a wonderful performance of Romeo and Juliet by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company that night. Ahhhhh bliss!


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Warwick Castle

This castle, in the middle of Warwick, is definitely worth seeing despite the queues and the very expensive entry fee (£16!). The medieval castle itself is huge and houses some fascinating displays. The grounds are extensive and over Easter there were people dressed up in medieval costumes and living in tents on them while demonstrating to the visitors their skills with the cross bow, the long bow, sword fighting, and general medieval food-making. Then there was Europe's largest trebuchet with which they fired a flaming 15kg boulder over 200 metres for our entertainment. A great day out but make sure that if you ever go you take the whole day as we missed out on a few things.


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Uffington White Horse

We stopped off at the Uffington White Horse on the way to Stonehenge and we were blessed by a break in the pouring rain during which to visit it. This is a giant chalk horse carved into the side of a hill about 3000 years ago. It is hard to imagine how it was drawn so in proportion without the help of modern technology considering the size of it! It is a bit more abstract than I expected but it was neat to see along with the indents left in the hillside from Uffington Castle.


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Stonehenge

Built thousands of years ago, Stonehenge is more than just a partly fallen circle of stones. With free entry thanks to our NZ Heritage cards (thanks Mum!) and a free audio guide, we explored this historical structure, one of the key landmarks of England. It is bigger than I expected and although you don't get within touching distance of the stones at all, you can photograph them from every angle (and believe me I pretty much did!) on the circuit around it. All I can say here is go see it yourself - there is something pretty special and amazing about it.


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Oxford

Now here is one city that I loved! With it's many pretty campuses or 'colleges' of Oxford University, its numerous towers and spires, and tonnes of old architecture and history, Oxford has the feeling of being very cultured and intellectual as well as young and fun with it's many students. As well as doing the City Bus Tour which is interesting but bombards with so many historical facts and stories about the city, Johnny and I had the benefit of our own personal tour guides, Emily and Peter, on a lovely walk around Oxford on Monday morning, visiting the pretty Christchurch College where some parts of the Harry Potter films are filmed, climbing to the top of the Lutheran University Church of St. Mary to see the 'City of Dreaming Spires', walking through cute little lane-ways that narrow off, and checking out Blackwells Bookstores - one of the biggest book stores I have ever seen! Oxford is definitely a place worth visiting time and time again!


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London

As we flew into and out of London, we took the opportunity to spend the night in London on Monday night. Unfortunately most of our friends who live there were away over Easter so unable to meet us but we enjoyed wandering around Leicester Square, having dinner in Covent Garden and just generally taking in the buzz of the big city before meeting up with our friend Quizzy for a drink.

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Overall it was a very different and busy but interesting and fun Easter! Hope you all had a good one too! HAPPY EASTER!!