Shakespeare's Town

We live in the middle of the island, so even it's not the most beautiful city in UK, Coventry is located excellent for people wanting to visit. Our list is huge so we started to check our objectives one by one.

Last weekend it was Shakespeare's town turn, Stratford upon Avon. It took just one hour and a half to get there with regular buses. Stratford upon Avon is a small touristic town now and it's visible how touristic it is comparing daytime when it's very crowd and the evening, when it looks almost deserted.

Stratford upon Avon, a kind of Google map...

A street in the city center

The most visited place is our hero's birth place, the house where he grow up. His father had a good condition because he was a glover and he had also some land. He was the Mayor of Stratford upon Avon for a while as well, so he could provide his lad a good education.

William Shakespeare's birth place

There is a small center in the memory of the poet, presenting his life, objects, books, etc...

Stratford upon Avon in the old times...

Mr Shakespeare writing something...

An old book... one of his plays

Shakespeare's coat of arms...

After he became famous he was promoted to a higher rank, one of the advantages was that he didn't had to serve his country in the army, he was a gentlemen.

At the beginning I thought that he is an idiot or something, but the truth is that he was payed to look like that :P

In the garden, actors were playing randomly pieces from his work...

the same house, view from behind

a memory with my medieval friends

We visited 3 from his family houses, and also his grave, in a church. A surprising thing for me was that during the religious service the tourists were allowed to visit the church! And this for 1,50 pounds which was the value of the ticket to enter to see the grave...

William Shakespeare's new residence

In the garden at Nash House, reading... (a leaflet) :)

At John Hall's house

It was interesting to see the differences between the rich and poor people in the medieval ages, the doctors could afford to have large houses, for example Mr John Hall (the husband of Shakespeare's daughter, Suzannah) had this big house where lived with another 2 people, having 13 servants, living in the same house of course. Inside I was impressed by his tools used for inspection and surgeries. They look something like the tools used by Inquisition for torture... and that ones for obstetrics looked like barbecue tools...

Coming back to the city, it's nice because there are free open air theatres, performed by amateurs or professionals.

open air stage

The town is nice, looking similar to Leamington Spa, there are all kind of tourist attractions, like boat cruises on river Avon, tours in the city, the butterfly farm, not too far you can see a horse race if you want to.

The clock tower

We left Stratford knowing that we will return there one day!