Warwick Castle and Hinckley

I headed out just after 7am for a run – I still can’t get used to the fact that it is pre-dawn darkness at this time of the morning! Home for shower and breakfast and we were all ready to leave by 9am.
We drove into Stratford-Upon-Avon first up, going passed Anne Hathaway’s cottage on the way. Parked by the Avon River near the Swan Theatre and walked into town from there. We had a nice stroll along the High St, had a look at Shakespeare’s birthplace from the outside but didn’t worry

about paying the fee to go in. We stopped at a very nice little café for a coffee – took a long time to make but it was really good coffee so worth the wait! On the way back to the car, Lauren stopped to feed the ducks and swans with the food we had left over from yesterday's trip around the Cotswolds - "a place of beauty"- which we had bought at the tourist information place in Bourton-on-the-water and fed to many ducks on our walk to Upper and Lower Slaughter.
After leaving Stratford our next stop was Warwick Castle, a medieval castle which was built by William the Conqueror in 1068, and it was fantastic. We paid extra on our admission ticket to do the dungeon experience which was lots of fun. First off though we walked through the Great Hall, State Rooms and the Earl’s private chapel. The rooms were all furnished in the 1700/1800 period with lots of interesting

history about the Greville family who owned Warwick Castle from the 17th century until 1978. There were wax figures depicting scenes from a Royal Weekend Party in 1898 which was very well done. The dungeon experience involved live actors in period costume and there were a few times that screams were emitted from the group we were with – including us!!
We ate our packed lunch back at the car before leaving the castle and then made tracks for Hinkley – the town where Brianna’s boyfriend Ciaran grew up before moving to Australia. It was a bit out of our way but seeing as we were only 30min away from Hinkley we decided if we were going to give Brianna the opportunity to see where he lived then today was the day to do it. After driving passed Ciaran’s house we took a drive through the town centre and then it was time to make tracks back to Calne. Rather than taking the long drive out to the motorway we chose the route on the GPS which was a more direct route to Calne and was also meant to be quicker. However, by the time we had driven through every town between Hinckley and Calne I don’t think it was any quicker than if we had done the longer motorway route and it was 5:45pm by the time we got to Calne – when we first selected this route on the GPS the arrival time was meant to be 5:04pm!! We stopped at Sainsburys for dinner supplies – I decided I would do a chicken pasta bake for dinner, without using a jar!! Had a very yummy – if slightly late dinner – and then caught the second half of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince before bed.