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Europe » United Kingdom » England » Warwickshire » Warwick
May 12th 2007
Published: May 12th 2007
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In the morning we visited Warwick Castle, located right behind our hotel. The castle is beautiful and extremely well persevered, but the whole place was hyper-touristy—wax figures, over-dramatic audio and video, and four separate gift shops selling slightly different things. Most of the cheesy figures centered around the castle’s involvement in the War of the Roses. A bunch of us got sucked into this hour-long presentation on preparations for battle which was only mildly entertaining and even less informative. We then watched a rather gimmicky but still enjoyable demonstration of the English longbow, which is what essentially kept the French from doing anything productive in the Hundred Years War. The really cool part of the castle was the walk through the rooms that would have been occupied by the Earl of Warwick as late as the early 20th century. The wax figures included Winston Churchill and Consuelo Vanderbuilt, the American heiress forced to marry the Duke of Blenheim. Then Joni and I took the tower tour—500-plus stairs, but the view from the top is gorgeous. It was interesting to see how many people had left graffiti on the towers . . . .

After the castle, the afternoon was free, so Joni and I set out in search of food. After a long and fruitless walk, we finally found a hole-in-the-wall place selling fish and chips! I have to say, I really like fish and chips, especially with salt and vinegar. I wasn’t so sure about the idea of putting the traditional “mushy peas” across the chips, but it wasn’t too bad. We ate our lunch in the shelter of the local history museum, so we figured we’d better at least have a look at their displays. Upstairs was an exhibit of local military history and downstairs was a sort of children’s exhibit. I say that because I’m not exactly sure what their organizing theme was. One display case contained Victorian porcelain dolls, Japanese figurines, toy soldiers, and Star Wars action figures. If you can make something of it, let me know.

On our way back, we got sucked into a used book store at which Joni happily bought a rather old copy of Robin Hood, to console her from the fact that we didn’t end up visiting Nottingham today like she’d hoped. (The BBC’s new Robin Hood series is her most recent obsession.) Luckily, I escaped from the bookstore with my wallet intact. We returned to the hotel room where we tried to make the most of our expensively purchased internet (10 pounds, or $20, for two nights) and watched several British talent contest shows—Greased Lightnin’ (the counterpart to You’re the One that I Want in the States) and Any Dream Will Do (casting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). As we’ve stayed in a few hotels, I’ve suddenly realized how pervasive American culture is—it’s hard to find a channel actually playing something British instead of Friends or Dawson’s Creek reruns. Don’t the British have their own TV shows? I mean really.

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