Ireland & England: Exploring the Gaelic Isles: Warwick Castle & Shakespeare

April 6 - Warwick Castle

On Saturday it was off to another castle, this time in the small town of Warwick. Warwick is near Birmingham and was once home to the Earl of Warwick that fought and died during the War of the Roses. While not as old as Cardiff Castle, Warwick has more of the original architecture from the 12^th century. There are also shows and games, for children and adults, going on throughout the day. The vast majority of the people that work at the castle are in period dress to add to the fun.

The first trick was getting to the castle from our hotel. While the castle is large, it is not immediately visible from the center of town and we had to stop and ask for directions at the open market in town. We did find the castle and upon entry were greeted with our first sight of the castle as well as an actor dressed as Henry VIII (no he was never at the castle, it was part of an educational program to teach history to children.) The first stop was the raising of the portcullis, an elaborate show with one of the workers in period dress discussing the architecture of the gates and the mechanics of a siege. After entering the main castle grounds there were several people with forms looking for volunteers to help work in the trebuchet demonstration. Matt looked through the form and signed up; due to problems with vertigo and motion sickness I was not allowed to volunteer. We then promptly headed over to the trebuchet for the safety discussion. Matt had to get in a lovely outfit for the show and then helped wind the trebuchet (basically he was a hamster in a wheel) for the morning demonstration. After the demonstration, people were allowed back to the trebuchet field to take a closer look and I stole Matt’s lovely outfit for a picture.

Warwick Castle

Henry VIII

Matt getting ready for the show in the trebuchet

Me in the trebuchet (after the show)

The Warwick Castle Trebuchet

From the trebuchet demonstration we headed over to the main field to get some lunch and watch the eagles demonstration. There we saw Archie the Bald Eagle, Ringo the Eurasian Griffon Vulture, and Nikkita the Stellars Sea Eagle with discussions about all of them. I tried to get some good pictures of them flying but it is hard to get a quickly moving creature in focus and actually get them in the frame. There are a few of the attempts as well as stationary pictures below.

Archie, the bald eagle flying by

Nikita, the Stellars Sea Eagle coming in to land

Ringo, the Eurasian Griffon Vulture

After the eagles we decided to take advantage of the short line and try our hands at archery. I really enjoyed it, though my fingers hurt a bit afterwards. Those strings are very hard to pull back hard enough and aiming isn’t easy. While all of my arrows did land on the target none were in the center circle. Matt had both better and worse luck, his first few arrows didn’t hit the target at all but he got one closer to the center than any of mine did. Ultimately he had one better shot while I was more consistent. I would definitely like to try my hand at archery again.

Me trying my hand at Archery

Matt trying Archery

After archery we headed into the main courtyard for the Warwick Warriors demonstration. It was basically a few men in period dress (not full armor, just light chain mail) demonstrating the use of swords, great swords, maces, and a battle axe. While it was entertaining it wasn’t overly impressive and the effect was diminished by the children that kept running back and forth around me and trying to crawl over the place I was sitting.

Warrior's Demonstration

After that we spent most of the afternoon exploring the castle. We saw the peacock garden and the fields before going to the Warwick Warriors so we mainly just had the actual castle left to see. We went into the great hall and wandered through the rooms that were open for visitors (not very many of them) before heading over to the battlements. The battlements were a little tricky for me. It is a one way path along the battlements and up into the towers, taking long winding staircases that were often steep and narrow to get up and down the towers. Being someone that doesn’t like heights and occasionally gets vertigo, the high towers provided a good view but made me very nervous and a little queasy, especially when I made the mistake of looking down when my foot hit something odd and found myself standing on a grate and able to see all the way down to the bottom of the castle. The queasiness was not helped by the dizzying staircase back down the tower. The scenery from the towers and battlements were very pretty but I was happy to be back down again.

Full Armor displayed in the Great Hall

Peacock in the Garden

View of Grounds fromTower

After the castle tour it was back to the fields for a second trebuchet demonstration, this one with fire. For this demonstration there were no volunteers and the addition of the fire made it a little more impressive and much easier to follow the path of the stone once the trebuchet was fired.

Flaming Trebuchet

April 7 - Shakespeare

Since we were so close, we decided that we should head over to Stratford-Upon-Avon on Sunday to see the home of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare experience tour includes a small museum with videos about Shakespeare’s life followed by five old houses in town that are associated with Shakespeare. For some of the houses, the connection to the bard is a bit tenuous and we did not go to all of them. We did go to the house where William Shakespeare was born, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage (the house his wife grew up in), and Hall’s Croft (the home of one of Shakespeare’s daughters and her husband the doctor). All of the houses were set up and furnished in a manner similar to that of the 17^th century when Shakespeare lived, though some of the houses had been expanded over the centuries.