Day 33-Stratford-Upon-Avon

Today we took a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon to check out this lovely little town. The town of Stratford is located on the Avon River and is on the North Eastern border of a very picturesque section of England called the Cotswolds. Nearly all of the buildings in this area are built from the "Cotswold Stone" giving them a very cute appearance unique to this area of England. The Cotswolds area is covered in lush green rolling hills and little villages of tans stone buildings with large churches.

We came to Stratford today to see the birth and final resting place of William Shakespeare and to see MacBeth. Although the scenery on the way to Stratford was beautiful, most of the students on the bus weren't enjoying it to the fullest extent due to motion sickness as a result of the constant bumping and turning of the bus as we negotiated the hills and narrow lanes of the Cotswolds' countryside. After 2 hours on the bus we finally made it and not a moment too soon!

Our guided tour of Stratford took us first to the church where Shakespeare is buried. It's a very pretty church and has many of the same characteristics of Westminster Abbey albeit on a much smaller scale. I took lots of pictures inside the church mostly because they actually allowed me. And also, if you've never been to Westminster, you can imagine that it looks a bit like this on the inside yet on a much grander scale. After the church we walked down the street to see the house where Shakespeare was born. We were allowed to take a tour inside, but I decided to pass on this because it was dinner-time and we were absolutely ravenous!

We went to dinner at a pub called the Crown & Rose. The food was decent. I think that if/when I go to Stratford again I will try The Swan/The Dirty Duck instead.

After dinner it was off to MacBeth at the Swan Theater. I took 2 pictures inside the theater before the usher lady yelled at me and told me that photography was not allowed. The pictures are really dark and that's a shame because this theater was really interesting inside and unlike any theater I have ever been in before. Basically the room is shaped like an oval except that the sides are flat and the ends are rounded. At one end of the rounded part is the stage at the other end is seating. The room has three levels of seating. On the floor and two galleries. The galleries are placed one on top of the other and each gallery has two rows. In the front row there are chairs where you lean against a railing to look over the side down to the stage below. On the second row you are either standing or sitting in very tall chairs and leaning against a bar to look over the heads of the people sitting in front of you and down to the stage below. It's a weird setup. I was sitting on the front side of the top gallery and did a lot of leaning. During intermission I asked the girls who were sitting behind me if they could see anything and they said nope. So I am glad I didn't get those seats!

Anyways, It's after 2am so I am going to try to get a little sleep now. I hope that everyone is doing well!

~Jenn