Stratford-Upon-Avon

On Thursday afternoon we departed in our coach (which picked us up at Madison House, so convenient) around 2pm for Stratford, the birthplace of William Shakespeare! We arrived there around 4:30, and had to meet at 7 pm at the Royal Shakespeare Theater for our production of Hamlet. I actually ended up being in my own room in the hotel! At first I was nervous about being by myself, but it ended up being awesome. I forgot how nice it is to sleep in my own double bed ALONE in a room.

My digs for the night

It was bitterly cold and windy, so the usual seven of us made a beeline for the center of town to find somewhere to eat. We settled on the Rose and Crown, a pub, where I had a delicious combo fish and chips and a treacle sponge cake!

The theater

The production of Hamlet was phenomenal. The theater was set up like the Blackfriar's in Staunton (and I assume the real one), with a stage that juts out in a rectangle and the audience sits all around it. We were all really surprised when the lights went down and the actors appeared in modern day clothes. I like to call the production "Hipster Hamlet." All of the words were original Shakespeare, but the atmosphere was decidedly modern. At first I was really thrown off by this change, but the acting was incredible. I could tell each of the actors was passionate about their character and knew them inside out. This was great, especially because the show was three and a half hours long, and I wasn't bored at all. After the play, the actors who played Horatio (Hamlet's friend) and Ophelia came back to the hotel and talked to us. Listening to them talk was mandatory for the theater class, but it was open to everyone so I stuck around. It was awesome to hear the actors' opinions about their characters and hear how they prepared to play such iconic roles. Not to mention they were really sweet and eloquent people.

The next morning, our group took a coach to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, about 10 minutes outside the city. Interestingly, the only significance of the cottage is literally that it's where Anne Hathaway grew up, nothing to do with Shakespeare. It was still a really cute cottage and it's always interesting to see how people lived hundreds of years ago. 

The coach next took us to the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried. Unfortunately, there was a school church service beginning right as we got there and we weren't able to enter the church. Everyone was really bummed, but we couldn't wait for the church to reopen to enter. It was a beautiful church.

Instead of riding in the coach, our tour guide walked us through the city from the church to Shakespeare's birthplace. This would have been a nice leisurely walk if it hadn't been sub zero with 20 mph wind. I felt so badly for acting impatient, but it really was ridiculously cold and our guide kept stopping and telling us irrelevant information. We did get to see the little town of Stratford, which I enjoyed. Finally we made it to the birthplace of Shakespeare. Again, very neat to see how people lived long ago, even though the house has been renovated since Shakespeare's time.  

Shakespeare's birthplace

We had a few hours before we left for Bath, so we just got lunch and popped into stores to shield ourselves from the cold. The motto of the weekend was definitely "this would be so nice in the summer." Our coach picked us up and then we were on to Bath!