Europe Trip, Days Four and Five

On days four and five, which were Friday and Saturday, we did bus tours that took us outside of London. Day four began at Winsor Castle. I didn't get great pictures here because it was rainy outside and we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. Security is tight there because it's the residence of the queen. We didn't see where she actually lives, but we were allowed to tour the state rooms where she sometimes receives visits and hosts state dinners. W e also saw some of the changing of the guard before getting back on the bus.


We stopped briefly at Stonehenge. As you can see, the wind was blowing and it was cool.

Lunch was at a pub called The George Inn, in the little village of Laycock. Walking through its streets is like stepping back to the 17th century, except for all the tourists and cars there. Since it's so well preserved, Laycock is used for filming TV shows and movies, like, you guessed it, Harry Potter.(Are you sensing a theme to our England trip?). The abbey in Laycock was the setting for some of the inner scenes in Hogwarts. The red brick house pictured here was Slughorn's house.

Last stop of the day was Bath. Here I am in the place where Grandma was baptized. I couldn't help but wonder where they stepped into the water, and if it was so slimy back then. She always said the water had to be cooled down for them. I wonder how they did that?

These lead pipes date back to Roman days. Pretty amazing. The Roman baths were fascinating. We also discovered delicious clotted cream ice cream in Bath.

Day Five

First on the itinerary was Warwick (pronounced Warrick) Castle. It was bought by the Madame Tussaud's company, who restored it and added some wax works to show what life in a castle might have been like. They also had lots of stuff going on on the grounds, like jousting and a huge trebuchet. This is a place where you could spend all day, but alas, we only had a couple of hours.

We were soon off to Stratford-upon-Avon. Here is it, The Birthplace of William Shakespeare. You could hear the capital letters when they talked about it, too--The Birthplace. Again, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the house was all furnished in the time period of his day and we learned some fun facts about life back them.

Here's Megyn shaking hands with the ghost of Shakespeare. We ate lunch in Stratford and had treacle tart and scones with jam and clotted cream for dessert.

I didn't get any pictures of the cottswolds as we passed through, but it was beautiful--green countryside dotted with sheep and bordered by low stone fences or hedgerows.

Then we came to Oxford. I felt like we barely scratched the surface of this town. We just had time to visit Christchurch College. Here's the great hall where the students dine. Can you guess what other great hall was based on this one?

And here we are climbing some stairs that appeared in Harry Potter I. We're wondering if Professor McGonagall will greet us at the top.

Two whirlwind days, as you can see, with lots of driving in between. We've decided that tour buses were a good way to see a lot of things in a short period of time. We were able to skip some lines and we got an interesting tour from the guide as we went. And now we know what we'd like to spend more time seeing if we ever make it back again.