And they're off and running...

We headed out bright and early on a Sunday morning, thinking that by delaying our trip until Sunday, we'd miss the traffic. This was true, but we didn't then take into account that being Sunday, things might not open till at least 10.

I picked up Tamara and we headed towards Stratford-upon-Avon. We were intending to go to Shakespeare's birthplace and the other Shakespeare-related places. On the way though, we realised how close we were to Warwick (known to us as Historic Warwick - say it quickly), and we decided to call in. Apparently there's a great castle there. We wouldn't know, as it didn't open for about an hour and a half after we got there. You couldn't even drive close enough to see it. Guess that's something to go back to. Driving away, we saw a sign for the Dream Factory. The name alone had us driving through the back streets looking for it - although we never found it. All in all, a successful visit to Historic Warwick!

We motored on out of there and moved on to Stratford-upon-Avon. After doing a little reconnassaince, we found a park, and wandered over to Shakepeare's birthplace. In the end we didn't actually go in there, as it wasn't open (surprise), and whilst we were taking some photos of the outside of it, a busload or two of kids showed up. Summer holidays is as much a kid-free zone as possible.

We then wandered through the town a little, grabbed some breakfast, and considered our next plan of attack. We decided to try and find Anne Hathaway's cottage. I didn't realise until we actually found it that Tamara (wingman and navigator) didn't know who Anne Hathaway was, besides an American actress! Given the cost of going into her cottage, we decided to not go in there either. We did manage to lean over the fence and take a few photos however. Looks like another trip back!

After the cottage we wanted to find Shakespeare's grave. My map (brought with me more for looking to see what was near us rather than for actual navigation) showed us where it was, so we headed over to the cemetery. Well, I should have done my homework on this one. Turns out, after wandering through the entire cemetery, that his grave is INSIDE the church, and that you can't visit it if a service is taking place. After our luck so far, you guessed it, there was a service taking place. The photo below is the River Avon, which runs along behind the cemetery.

First official place we had planned to visit, and I had seen the outside of the 3 things I'd wanted to see. Awesome.