Stratford Upon Avon

When we spent the night in Warwick, we were thinking we'd go over to Stratford Upon Avon the next day.  In the lobby of the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at, there was a display of brochures for local attractions.  Cambria saw the Butterfly Farm brochure, and asked if we could go.  One of the great things about living here is that we'll be able to go back and see all the historical sites. We're not too worried about seeing all the major sites in one day, so we said sure!

This was the third butterfly farm we'd been to, there's a small one at Six Flags in Vallejo, then we'd been to the one at Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX.  This one was not as new and fancy as the Moody Gardens one, but it was large and best of all, warm!  The admissions lady told us the ticket was for all day, so we could come back at the end of the day and warm up if we wished - we thought that was very nice.

I put arrows on the picture, otherwise it's hard to see the butterfly.  :) 

This was really neat, they had rows and rows of cocoons on these racks.  We were able to see 2 butterflies emerge from their cocoons while we watched.



It's a little freaky to have them land on you - Cambria was holding my hand for most of the time we were in there.  She liked it, but she was nervous too. 

The kids were using my camera, so I have dozens of butterfly photos, I'll only show you the best one.  They are butterflies, I'm sure y'all can imagine butterflies.  :)

They also had an insect and arachnid room, yuck.  Meridian is taunting a scorpion in this picture.

There was an iguana loose in the butterfly garden too, he was just hanging out on a hill.  His tail was about 3 feet long!

So after the Butterfly Farm, we made our way across the Avon river and started to look around.

They had canal boats in this docking area in between two locks.  The girls are looking at the ice on the surface, it was about half an inch thick.  There was a sandwich board out announcing that you could take a 45 minute tour for cheap - like £5 each, and that they had food and drink on board.  The girls wanted to go, and so we figured we'd catch the next one and have a snack and tour on the river.

While we were waiting for the next boat, we wandered around the square, trying not to slip on the frozen sidewalks, which were worse near the boat area.  We came upon a monument that was a group of statues, with Shakespeare at the top and four of his main characters surrounding him.  

Me and Lady Macbeth

When the canal boat came back, we got on board and ordered some drinks.  Hot Chocolate, Tea, and Mulled Wine, yum!

 

After we got our drinks, the captain came down and said that apparently they hit something on their last tour, and the propeller was bent.  They had to shut down for the day.  Then he said we could stay aboard while they went down the river and parked the boat for free, if we wanted to.  We were warm and our drinks were good, so we said that'd be fine.   So we got to go through a lock and onto the river at least, and they didn't even charge us for the drinks.  We'll have to use them again next time. 

We stopped into the Tourist Information center, and after lunch we ended up going over to the house where Shakespeare was born and grew up.  One ticket gets you into all 5 Shakespeare related houses for a year, so even though we didn't have time to see them all that day, we went ahead and bought the tickets.  It was nice because there weren't very many people touring that day, but you could tell from the way they move you through that the crowds get pretty big sometimes.  

 

You're not supposed to take pictures inside, so this is NOT the inside of Shakespeare's house, with the girls looking out the front window.  

The tour was interesting, there were docents along the way telling stories and answering questions.  We learned a bit about how life was back then.  It's also neat to see a list of all the famous people who have come to see Shakespeare's house - lots of famous authors, poets and actors included. 

The front of Shakespeare's birth house. Shakespeare's dad made leather gloves and sold them out their front window. 

Me and the girls in front of the house.

This is a view down the road the house is on in.  

Stratford Upon Avon (and yes, there is another Stratford in England, so you have to say Upon Avon) was a charming little town.  We are sure to be back in the Spring to see the other 4 houses.  Anne Hathaway's cottage particularly is supposed to be really pretty in the Spring.