Brad's England Journal- March 25th Entry

Tuesday, March 25, 1997

Group Photo at Warwick Castle
We are now in the Hostel in Bath, and it has been a busy couple of days. Yesterday morning we headed off to Warwick Castle (see photo at right), which is about a 30 minute drive from the University of Birmingham. Warwick Castle is one of the best preserved castles in all of England, although much of it is only reconstructed. It has all of the typical things you would expect in a Castle-- a moat, a drawbridge, towers, great halls, a torture chamber, dungeons, and a magnificent garden. We toured through most of the sights at the castle, including walking on the castle walls, seeing the dungeon, and visiting the living quarters. Carrie was not as interested in the Torture Chamber and Dungeon as Alex, Jeff and I were, and conversely I think we found the Halls of State less interesting. We went to the gardens as well, where they had peacocks (photos at left and below right). One had managed to fly up into a tree and was perched on a low branch (see photo at left). You don't expect to see peacocks off the ground, and one Rugby player from a team that was touring the castle looked up at it, then looked at us and asked, "What the hell is that thing?"

We went back to Birmingham to change into nicer clothes, and immediately turned around and drove back down to Stratford, which is near Warwick. We got their barely ten minutes before the play started, and we still hadn't parked the car. Alex (who is driving for the trip), let us out to pick up the tickets and went to park the car. I let Jeff and Carrie head in to get their seats, and waited for Alex, who ran in, having parked the car a quarter of a mile away, literally seconds before they closed the doors. The play was "Much Ado About Nothing," and it was very well done and humorous. It told the tale of romantic intrigue in an Italian court, and ends up with several happily married couples after the usual twists and turns.

Jeff, Alex and I at the Botanical Garden
Carrie at the Garden

Around Oxford
We got back late last night from the play, and everybody was fairly tired, so we agreed to sleep in until 9:30am. We got out the door fairly quickly and headed down to Oxford. Since I've already been to Oxford, I won't bother to describe it again in much detail. We went to Christ Church College again, and also walked through the Botanical Gardens which had some very interesting flowers in hot houses.
On the Small Gauge Train
Walking Back to the Car Along the Tracks of the Small Gauge Railroad
Playing Chess in the Blenheim Garden

Around Blenheim Palace
Instead of heading directly to Bath, we decided to stop at Blenheim Palace, which is near Oxford. It is the family home of the Duke of Marlborough. Since we got there 25 minutes before closing time, they let us in for free, but we could only see the exterior and the grounds. The exterior architecture was gold gilted, but a marked contrast to the French style I had seen in Paris which was much more ornate and gaudy. We took a miniature-gauge train over to the Palace Gardens, which feature the worlds second largest hedge maze, which was surprisingly small. The hedges were also only about chest high so you could see over them. There was also a butterfly house which was fun to go in. We saw quite a number of interesting butterflies, including some Monarch butterflies which I hadn't seen since I left California. Alex and I also played a game of chess on a giant chess board, but we had to stop when the place shut down.  Unfortunately since we had stayed until the last minute the train had stopped running and we had to walk back along the tracks.

After that we raced down here to Bath, since our reservation was only good until 6:30pm. We had tried to call several times to confirm the reservation, but unfortunately it was always busy. We didn't get there until around 7pm, and by then they had given our quad room away. Fortunately they were able to shuffle some other people around and get us into another quad. We have just returned from a nice Italian dinner, and a close encounter between Alex and the traffic police. Tomorrow we will tour Bath, but for tonight it is time to sleep.