July 11

The shortest day of the summer, at least for you. We drove from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Stow-on-the-Wold, England. It took almost the entire day. We stopped only for gas (have you seen those prices?) and food. Loads of fun.

We got to the Cotswolds in the early afternoon and I braved all those angry cows (like they could get at me in a restaurant) and had a splendid beef dish. That's about it. I told you it'd be short.

July 12

We started the day at Warwick Castle. That's pronounced "War-ick" not "War-wick" regardless how many times I might say "War-wick."

The castle was built many many years ago, but refurbished by the Earl (or Count or Duke or some big important titled guy) of Warwick in the 1800s. Up until part way through the last century (it sounds so strange to refer to the 1900s as the "last" century) the castle was actually inhabited. Very strange indeed.

The part that served as the living quarters had been set up as it was in 1890 before a dinner party. As we walked through, I thought it was rather a poor display and that they had sacrificed the castle's integrity for the sake of tourism. However, by the time we exited this area I realized it had helped me see Warwick as a living castle rather than just a pile of ruins most of the other castles were.

Warwick did, of course, have all the other castly bits like dungeons and towers and battlements along the walls not to mention live archers, knights, and soldiers. These all had huge lines to see them as it seemed every school group in the nation was there on holiday, but every so often the sky would open up and pour rain on their unprotected heads and they'd all run for cover leaving those of us clad in Gortex to wander about unimpeded.

The dungeon was particularly frightening. You went down a long staircase below one of the towers into a small room with no windows. There were eye-bolts on the walls where they would chain people and a hole in the floor where they could cram a person and then just leave them to die. Even now the thought of it still creeps me out.

After Warwick we went to Stratford-upon-Avon which is the birthplace of Shakespeare. We did all the standard touristy things like seeing the house he was born in and his tomb in a church on the river, but overall it was a bit of a letdown. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it was I didn't see it.

Perhaps if we'd seen a play there it might have been better. We had tickets to see "Jubilee" which is sort of like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" in that it is a look at Shakespeare's world behind the curtain. Unfortunately, when we decided to skip Wales everything was bumped up a day after Edinburgh and we couldn't make our tickets. At least Ticketmaster UK took them back. We wound up eating at a place called "The Pen and Parchment" before heading back to Stow.

Our evening was driving around the Cotswolds to Chipping Camden looking for thatched roofs. Amazingly, ordinary people still have roofs made of thatch. You'd think a country like England could help its people get over that, but oh well. We walked a bit around Stow before crashing.

The Cotswolds were a nice, relaxed couple of days. We had plenty to do, but being in a tiny town like Stow (maybe a couple hundred people tops) helped us to forget about the crazy cities behind us and yet to come. We head further south, next, to Bath and Bournemouth.