From cradle to the grave in Shakespeare Country

New Place garden

Stratford-upon-Avon (population 28,000) isn't a big town, but it wasn't easy finding our hotel while driving along the narrow center streets and keeping an eye for tourists stepping down from the curb. Eventually we found the Falcon Hotel (free parking!), and once checked in and unburdened of baggage, we set off to explore William Shakespeare's birthplace (and resting place). Naturally, the first stop had to be Shakespeare's Birthplace:

OK, so it can't be definitively said that this is the house where Shakespeare was born and spent his formative years. Still, it's worth a visit to see the restored Tudor rooms and artefacts associated with the Bard:

Costumed character actors give descriptions of the rooms and the lives of people in Tudor times. This chap also played the role of mediator, helping to keep the peace when an elderly male American tourist starting expressing anger at the equally elderly female Korean tourists who were pushing by him to get out of the room without so much as a "pardon me":

Everywhere we went in the UK, we encountered Asian visitors, or as my daughter described it, middle-aged women whose hairstyles resembled her Taiwanese grandmother's. My Asian wife wasn't too interested in the work of Shakespeare, but she did linger at this small display on Tāng Xiǎnzǔ 湯顯祖, a Chinese contemporary of the Bard's:

Back out on Henley Street:

Popping into the charming Guild Chapel:

While scholars debate over exactly where Shakespeare was born, there's no doubt where he was laid to rest. Holy Trinity Church is said to be the most visited parish church in England:

Inside you can check out the choir stalls and tombs dating from the 16th and 17th centuries (such as in the Clopton Church below):

But the main draw, of course, is the Bard's grave:

Stratford may be very English (definitely very Tudor), but Shu-E needed a break from English cooking. We had pizza for lunch after arriving in town; dinner was at a Thai restaurant around the corner from our hotel, where I rubbed the lucky Buddha beer bottle before digging into the pad thai:

After dinner, while the girls rested back in our room, I took a walk down to the River Avon:

Amber and I relaxing in the hotel garden after breakfast the following morning:

Tudor buildings on Church Street:

The next Shakespeare sight of note we visited was Nash's House and New Place. When Shakespeare retired, he returned to Stratford from London, moving into a townhouse at New Place, passing away there in 1616. The house was demolished in 1759; an Elizabethan knot garden (more like a small farm in the Bard's time) sits on part of the property:

Items related to Shakespeare, such as his signet ring and will, are on display in the adjacent Nash's House, the home of the Bard's granddaughter:

Bringing out my inner Branagh or Olivier:

The last stop before leaving Stratford was Anne Hathaway's Cottage, a thatched farmhouse located just outside the center of town:

The Bard's wife lived here before marriage. The house contains period furniture...:

...while the grounds make for a quiet stroll. My daughter gets a visual representation of the British Isles:

Back to British basics for lunch - Amber enjoys shepherd's pie at Anne Hathaway's Cottage Cafe, across the street from the house:

A horse with no pressing appointments, in a field behind the cafe:

Bidding adieu to the Bard, we left Stratford for our next destination, Windermere in the Lake District, a drive that took around six hours, almost twice as long as what Google Maps claimed. It isn't easy to cover a lot of distance in a single day in the U.K. The country roads are narrow and it isn't unusual to get stuck behind a slow-moving tractor, while the motorways can get clogged with traffic - we unfortunately drove through Preston on the M6 right as rush hour (on a Friday, no less) was kicking in. Still, the rural scenery was charming, from the green rolling hills and the fields populated by grazing cattle and sheep to the picturesque towns and villages that could be missed if you blinked while driving through them:

No connection to Shakespeare or Stratford that I'm aware of, but undoubtedly English:

Where the demons dwell

Where the banshees live and they do live well

It took around ninety minutes to drive from the car rental agency in Oxford to Salisbury, in Wiltshire. Driving on the left side wasn't a problem (I've driven in Japan), but trying to figure out which exit to take in the numerous roundabouts you come across once you leave the motorways was a challenge at times. We arrived in central Salisbury late in the afternoon and quickly learned that the parking meters weren't accepting the new £1 coins. It was about 500 meters on foot from the parking lot to Salisbury Cathedral, passing some historical markers en route:

Though I was aware the cathedral boasts the tallest spire in England, I wasn't prepared for the awesome sight that awaited us as we rounded the corner of a row of buildings:

The church was completed in 1258. Though we arrived too late in the day for the ninety-minute tour of the 123 meter-high tower (completed in the middle of the 14th century), we were able to glimpse one of only four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta, the historic agreement signed in 1215 by King John and his barons, setting out the principle that monarchs are bound by the law (but you knew that already). Photography of the mid-13th document isn't permitted:

Afterward, we explored the gorgeous interior of the cathedral until nearly closing time. The grandeur of it all was almost enough to convince this lapsed Anglican to return to the bosom of the church. Almost:

Returning to our car and relieved to find it hadn't been ticketed or towed, we drove to our lodgings for the evening, the Victoria Lodge Guest House. Southern England was still in the grip of its worst heat wave since 1995; the proprietress recommended a nearby riverside pub as both a place to have dinner and a spot to cool off (my daughter couldn't get over the fact that part of the route there was on Butts Road). The Boathouse proved to be a good choice, for its location...:

...and for its food - steak salad for dinner and crumble pie with custard for dessert:

Then, of course, there were the liquid refreshments, including that great English summer quaff, Pimm's:

Feeling cooler, we walked back into central Salisbury, eventually reaching the cathedral again, just as magnificent on a late summer's evening:

Watching Amber enjoying herself on an English village green, all seemed right with the world:

Back at the hotel and posing in front of our rented BMW, which would serve as a trusted workhorse as we drove up to Edinburgh and down into York over the course of the following week:

It was to be yet another hot, stuffy night with only a small fan and an open window to keep us cool:

We awoke the next morning to find the weather had transformed itself. Whereas the previous day (and the four before that) had been sunny and hot (with temperatures above 30 Celsius), day six was cloudy and chilly, with temperatures in the low teens and rain a constant threat. A typical British summer, in other words. The heat wave had finally broken (and would remain so for the rest of our trip), much to my wife's great relief.

After checking out, we drove to the great archaeological site that is Stonehenge. In years past, visitors could drive up close to the monument and walk among the mammoth stones. Today, the road has been restored to grassland and an impressive visitor center, located 1.5 kilometers away and next to the car park, provides an informative introduction to the Stone Age feat of engineering:

Sharp-eyed readers will note the pop culture reference in the bottom right corner:

My daughter poses in front of a replica of one of the massive granite stones used in the construction. No one is entirely sure how the builders with only the simplest of tools were able to haul the huge blocks of granite from the Preseli Mountains in south Wales, located 250 miles away:

Shuttle buses take visitors from the center to the site. Construction began hundreds of years before the dawn of history...er, around 3000 BCE, with construction of an outer circular bank and ditch. The bluestones, the inner circle of granite stones, were added in 2000 BCE. Stonehenge's main stones were put in place around 1500 BCE, set up in a circle with lintels placed on top to produce the distinctive trilithon appearance. The earlier bluestones were also rearranged around the same time into the alignment we see today. In addition, the circle includes the South and North Barrows, which were aligned to coincide with sunrise at the midsummer solstice (which by coincidence had occurred the day before our visit).

Visitors are no longer allowed to roam freely inside Stonehenge. Instead, a pathway goes almost all the way around the site. The result is an amazing photo op:

And, no, it wasn't built by the Druids.

Sacrificial altar? Celestial calendar? Whatever its purpose was, Stonehenge is an archaeological gem.

To be continued...