It was as full day for us today. We signed up a one day tour with golden tours. Supposed to visit Warwick Castle, Shakespeare's birthplace and Oxford university, where Harry Potter was filmed.
After spending so much time in London, it was a breath of fresh air to go out to the country side. It's about 2 hours drive away from the city.
Lots of sheep and open green spaces. Beautiful landscape.
Finally arrived at Warwick castle. A real English castle that is restored and is supposedly to be haunted.
Wooden catapult replica.
Castle bridge entrance over a moat.
The castle was filled with real armor and weapons used in olden times. Old furniture and pictures fill the castle.
Here is the defense mechanism of the castle. Enemy soldiers are trapped between the first gate and the second gate. The defending soldiers will then pour hot oil or shoot arrows from above.
Next off we made our way to stratford, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. But before that, we encountered a short shower of snow! Joyce was thrilled.
Asked me to take photo of it. We are ssnoooow desperate.
Anyway Stratford is this peaceful little town with many old buildings, some as old as the 500 years old. The black and white are marks of restoration during the Victorian era. Originally, the wooden beams are not painted black.
Finally we made our way on foot to Shakespeare's house. The floor of which is the actual floor which Shakespeare walked on as both boy and man.
As you can see, the houses of 1500's are not very big. The ceilings are about my height and the doors are even shorter. It's not because people are short in those days, rather, its to keep the heat in cause the winter, would you believe it, is 10 degrees colder than today's.
After which, we drove off to Oxford University. It's really a town that has nothing special in particular, except it's university. The rivalry with Cambridge was so strong that in Oxford, you cannot mention the word Cambridge, so everybody refers to Cambridge as "the other university".
Oxford University is actually an umbrella of many colleges. So if someone says he is studying in Oxford, what he really means is, he is studying in one of the colleges under the umbrella. Anyway all pics are in this college called Christchurch college.
Everything about Oxford is very elaborate and intricate and ancient with rich history for almost everything.
Oh this is our tour guide. Quite knowledgable indeed.
The place where Harry Potter was filmed. It's actually the dinner banquet hall full of portraits of great people.
It's a beautiful place to get educated. People like C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair.
Signing off now, we got train tickets to Edinburgh, 4 hours train ride to the northern part of Britain. Watch out for tomorrow's blog!
