Stratford-upon-Avon

This is our little traveler...

...and this is how she toured Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace

Our first stop, Anne Hathaway's cottage. Anne was Shakespeare's wife whom he married when he was only 18 years old and she was much older. It was a beautiful cottage and a little further out of town, which was a nice setting. On the tour we learned about some of the origins of english words...the only one I can remember is "patent leather" which comes from the shoes the women would wear that lifted them above the muck of the cow stalls called patents and when they would go out and milk the cows, milk would spill on the shoes and eventually made them shiny, thus patent leather.

There was a beautiful English garden on the premises.

My two loves...

Our little family...

Next: we drove into town and stopped at Shakespeare's birth home. Born in 1564 (I think the house was built 100 years before he was born) Shakespeare's family was wealthy. This is also the home that Shakespeare and Anne lived in after they were married. I was surprised at how long ago people started flocking to the house as a homage to Shakespeare. The home was finally bought and put into a public trust in 1847.

Once you toured through the home, they had some actors acting out scenes from Shakespeare's plays in the courtyard.

Next: we walked through the town to New Place/Nash's house...

One of the neat buildings off the High Street

An old bank

"New Place" was the home that Shakespeare returned to after his career in London. Unfortunately all that is left of it are these beautiful gardens. The man who bought it later on, tour the house down. Next door is Nash's house where Shakespeare's granddaughter lived for a while.

a crooked house in town.

While I stayed in the car with an asleep Avery, Jacob ran into Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried.

On our way home, I drove for the first time. Which wasn't too bad, but a little tricky to gage distance on the left hand side. We took a more scenic route home and drove through the cotswold towns of Broadway and Chipping Campden. This is just a preview of our trip this coming Saturday.