Blogs from Warwick, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 3

Day 100 Having resided in Birmingham for nearly two weeks we were well and truly overdue to visit the Cadburys factory. A short train trip out to Bournville aka "Cadburyville" we arrived, following the purple signs and the unmistakable smell of cholocate to the massive factory. Through the gate with our discount ticket, we were immediately loaded up with a showbag of cholocate goodies. First stop was 'Cadabra' the story of how Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate came to be and a shot of warm melted chocolate with your choice of lollie/mashmellow/biscuit mixer. Wow!!Then through the jungle and Cadbury story (how chocolate was made an a non-alcoholic alternative?!), Making chocolate presentation (How a cocoa bean turns to chocolate), packaging plant (pumping out some crazy amount of boxes per minute), manufacturing plant (Where chocolate turns into a crunchie!), ... read more

Saturday 7th June Arising fairly early we were greeted by warm sunshine. We began by heading away from Warwick back to Stratford-Upon-Avon again to see Anne Hathaway's Cottage. William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1592. There are some suggestions that the marriage was not a terribly loving one (In his will, Shakespeare specifically left his "second best bed" to Anne) and Shakespeare must've spent quite some time away in London with his acting troop. But like almost everything about Shakespeare, very little is truly known; almost no documents (other than the plays) have survived. The cottage is where Anne grew up, and the guides would have you believe that the seat before the fire-place is where Anne and William might've kissed and cuddled during their courtship. Or rather, what remains of the seat! Mrs Mary Baker ... read more

Last night while chilling at the BnB where I got free internet (which is always a welcome as apposed to the 10 pounds an hour at most hotels) Mom flipped open the England Guide book leant to me from Cleo. It is the best book ever (it's published by lonely planet) She was like Warwick is only like 9 miles from here and there is a really old cool castle there. Lets go there tomorrow on our way to Oxford. I love lastminute trips like that. It was super easy to get to...like anything else we get to the town with no problem and then we get there and spend forever actually finding te castle. you wouldn't think it would be that difficult because, well, it's a castle, how hard is it to miss. Well we ... read more

Went to Stratford Upon Avon today....and here are some pictures!... read more

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 ... read more