London!! Day 3, continued

A short bus ride from Warwick Castle, and we were at Anne Hathaway's cottage.  The gardens were gorgeous.  The roof was being re-thatched, which was neat to see.

Although, I did say to a friend of mine, once you've seen a bunch of Colonial homes, like the ones we have here in RI, you've kind of seen them all.  Mind you, Anne Hathaway's cottage and Shakespeare's birthplace are 200 years older than the homes we have here, but I got the same feel from them.

 

 

 

 

After visiting the cottage (and gift shop--tell me that a deck of playing cards with the Kings & Queens of England with the dates of their reigns isn't educational! LOL), we rode into Stratford-upon-Avon.  We had about an hour to explore the town before our tour of Shakespeare's birthplace was scheduled.

The River Avon:

 

Gee, were we this close to home? LOL  (We live in Warwick, RI--read the sign!)

We had a fantastic lunch (the English have cornered the market on shortbread, I tell you!), and visited a chocolate shop, and found a Stratford-Upon-Avon Christmas ornament (I am ridiculously excited about this), then headed to the birthplace.

Have I mentioned that we were in England during what appeared to be Europe's Spring Break?  There were groups of students everywhere, and Shakespeare's birthplace was no exception.  We ended up skipping the museum part, and just went through the house.  Again, no pictures were allowed, but the grounds were beautiful.

Me, in front of the home:

 

A cedar of Lebanon:

 

Doesn't Steve look relaxed?

Actors playing out a scene from Romeo & Juliet:

 

It was a completely fabulous day.  After a nap on the ride home, Steve and I decided to take a walk to:

What a huge store!  We only saw a small part (of course, the Food Mall had to be investigated).  We bought the kids some gummy bears and candy.  The people in front of us in line spent spent almost 200 British pounds on candies.  YIKES.

We stopped at The Spaghetti House--a chain in London--for pasta.  Just what I was in the mood for.  Then back to the hotel.