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Published: June 14th 2010
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Stourport on Severn
just near Terry's house We spent two days in the Worcester district. This is because there are a couple of good things to see here, and one of them takes a full day so see.
We had stayed in a little town near Worcester overnight to catch up with a friend of ours, Terry Walls. We stayed the first night at Terry’s house, and it was good to catch up with him. We left Terry’s house next morning and sent to an English Landmark called Wawrick Castle. This is England’s premier castle experience and is an old castle that has been turned into a great day out. It was a hot day (REALLY
hot for UK standards… it was about 28 degrees and it was still holidays for the little English children, so the place was very popular that day. Like all of England, parking our little Vauxhall Astra car was a bit of a problem, and the nearest park was in a field that is a 20 minute walk away from the castle.
Our British heritage pass came to the fore here, as the castle entry, which is usually about 19 pounds is included in the pass list of free entries. That’s about
$A35 in saved entries from the one place alone.
The Castle is a real castle from about the 11th century. It is in very good condition and has a well known history. It has been given a new lease of life by turning it into one of England’s premier castle tourist attractions. So on one side they show off the castle’s history, and then they use the experience at the castle to entertain the children who attend, and thus give them an interest in English history. The end result is that the castle is like a theme park and you have 2000 kids a day attacking each other with swords and bows and arrows, while wearing their new armor.
They have lots of entertainment all day including sword fighting, archery and jousting. The premier event for the day was the firing of a 100kg burning rock by a medieval slingshot that was about 30 metres high. We have a video on the blog site if you are interested.
The next day was planned for Stratford upon Avon, the home of Shakespeare. We stayed in a hotel called Studley Castle, and it wasn’t really a castle, just an old convent that
Whitley Court Fountain
This Fountain is quite famous throughout Britain was made to look like a castle. It was still really good, and we enjoyed the hotel. As breakfast at the hotel was exorbitantly expensive, we bought our own breakfast from a local shop and decided to find a picnic area to eat it. The picnic area that we found was a beautiful homestead and gardens called Hagley Court and it was a huge old stately home with 400 acres of lush gardens, and a big lake. The estate was set up for people to go for the day, and they had an adventure playground for the kids, and sailing and rowing boats on the lake. The gardens were special too, and they included some very interesting sculptures.
When we finally made it to the Stratford upon Avon town, we too found that very interesting. Not only was Shakespeare a master of entertainment, he was a genius in his own right. Many of the words that we use as our common language were invented in the writings of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare history in Stratford upon Avon is well documented, and there are many places to visit there.
We once again met up with Terry here, and after a brief lunch
with Terry, and his girlfriend Tracey, we drove to Luton Airport to return the hire Car. That too was an interesting experience, as we had to fuel the car up before returning it, and we drove the city for nearly an hour before using the GPS to find a petrol station. (My ears hurt)( his ears hurt because I advised that we leave half an hour earlier to allow for this and finding airport etc which of course didn’t happen). We then returned the car, and caught 2 busses and 2 trains to get to Liverpool Street station to start the next part of our journey. Let me tell you that walking around London carrying your entire luggage collection when it’s really hot is not really fun.
We survived!!
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