The morning that we went to visit Blarney in Cork, Amy said she had a tickle in her throat. By Thursday, that tickle had evolved into a pretty harsh cough and cold. But by Saturday she was doing much better, just in time for Stratford and such. And by the time Monday evening rolled around, I was patting my awesome immune system on the back for keeping me sick-free for over a week. Of course, by the time I went to bed that night, I could feel my luck slipping away... It had to happen eventually.
Tuesday was not fun. I was ready for someone to put me out of my misery. But yesterday was a better day, and today is even better. Hopefully the trend continues tomorrow!
Alright, enough of that. Onto weekend trip #3...
On Saturday morning we woke up early to head down to the bus station. We took a bus from Newcastle down to west-central England. We were only about two hours away from London, so that gives you an idea of how far we traveled.
Our first stop on Saturday was in the Cotswolds, a hilly region often referred to as the heart of England. We stopped in a little town called Stow-on-the-Wold for about an hour.
I probably would have liked this town a little more if it hadn't been seriously raining. We sought refuge in an in an antique fair for a bit, then ventured back outside in the rain.
It did clear up eventually, but of course we had to leave. Our next stop was Bourton-on-the-Water.
We had more time to spend here and better weather to walk around in! The sky looked darkly ominous from time to time but thankfully it didn't rain.
Bourton-on-the-water sits on the River Windrush, which is home to many ducks. The river definitely didn't compare to any of the three rivers back home, but I thought the name was cute. We walked around town, visiting a few interesting shops and stopping for scones in a tea house. I got excited when I saw a milkshake on the menu, but it turned out to be just chocolate milk with whipped cream on it. It was still good, though.
After that, our friendly bus driver took us to our hotel for the night. We had dinner and watched some sort of big Europe concert thingamajig. The name of it escapes me right now...
The next morning, we got up for breakfast and I may have confused the server when I asked for ham, but I also pointed at the ham aka gammon, so he gave me some gammon aka ham. haha.
Then, it was onto Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare's neck of the woods. It was rainy but our bus driver arranged for us to have a tour, and he drove us around while the tour guide did her thing. She was super cool and very knowledgeable.
We stopped by Anne Hathaway's cottage for a pit stop. You can probably tell from the picture that it was rainy and kinda blah. After our tour, the skies cleared for a bit and the sun even came out!
Of course, another big draw in the area is Shakespeare's birthplace. We drove by it briefly but Amy and I went for a closer look after the tour. We didn't go inside because it cost like 12 pounds or something, and we didn't want to pay that much.
We walked around town, going into little shops and looking around. There was a nice little Christmas store we found, plus I was lucky enough to find a gift shop that was all about London! I was pretty happy about that because I didn't make it to one in London. After looking around main street Stratford, we headed to the church where Shakespeare is buried. It was a nice little walk away from town. There was pretty scenery along the way, and you can see above how the rain cleared up and a pretty blue sky came along!
How cool would it be to get married in this church? Our tour guide said she was lucky enough to snag it. It's a beautiful church, and the grounds are just as pretty.
Once we had seen Shakespeare's final resting place, we headed back into town for some lunch (or dinner? I can't remember) at Subway before getting back on the road, destination Newcastle. It was a good weekend, albeit a smidge rainy. You can't have it all, I guess.
Took me a minute to remember...but it was Eurovision....and Norway won! :)
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