I love Stratford-upon-Avon in the winter, when it drizzles

Apologies to Cole Porter.  But I do love Stratford-upon-Avon, and it was winter, and it drizzled the whole day.  H stayed at the flat to try and recoup some energy, so it was just me and girls doing the Shakespeare day trip.

When I was growing up, we had a little cream-colored painted earthenware plaque hanging on our wall at home that depicted Anne Hathaway's Cottage.  So seeing the real thing was perhaps more exciting for me than it should've been.  (Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife, BTW.)  Walking through the house was an interesting peek into renaissance-era domestic life.  And it was thrilling to tread on the same paved floor in the same room where Shakespeare courted Anne Hathaway.  But it didn't really give any insight into Shakespeare as a playwright.

E hugs a giant wicker rabbit outside Anne Hathaway's Cottage.

A bust of Shakespeare at Shakespeare's birthplace in downtown Stratford.

The kitchen at Shakespeare's birthplace, with a rather realistic dead goose on the table.

In the Visitor's Centre there was a big dress-up box for little girls to pretend they're in a Shakespeare play.  No two little girls could have been more delighted.

Then in the lobby, two young and very talented Shakespearean actors present scenes from Shakespeare's plays on demand!  You could literally go up to them and say, "Can you do something from Cymbeline (or Troilus and Cressida, or Macbeth, or whatever)?" and they would!  Remarkable.  They had at least one scene from every play memorized.   This, I think, was a scene from one of the histories.  Perhaps one of the Henry IVs.

And here something from A Midsummer Night's Dream, with our students to the left.

Shakespeare's birthplace.

Even the gift shop is cute!

This is the site of Shakespeare's house where he lived when he was all grown up.  It was razed a long time ago, but a recent archeological dig has pulled up some remnants and artifacts from Shakespeare's time.  They also discovered within the last year or two that the foundations of Shakespeare's actual house are directly under that mulberry tree behind the plastic orange temporary fencing in the background.  When the archeologists applied for permission to do a dig there and uncover Shakespeare's house, the city of Stratford denied the request because it would mean chopping down the 60-year-old mulberry tree.  So there you have it.  We have to wait another century to excavate the Shakespeare residence because some environmentalists want to preserve a nuisance tree that was planted only in  the 1950s.  Phooey.

Some lovely Elizabethan woodwork on a shop front in Stratford.

There's a candy store (or lollie shop) chain in the UK called Mrs Simm's Olde Sweet Shoppe.  How could anyone resist a store like this, with dark wood paneling and every manner of confection in glass jars?

The girls actually had a fantastic day in Stratford.  C just doesn't like getting her picture taken.  Here we are picking up an early dinner at a cafe--soup and cornish pasties--before the long drive back to London.

With no Thanksgiving in this country, there's nothing between Halloween and Christmas.  So Christmas decorations tend to go up earlier here than in the US.  It was still mid-November when we in Stratford, but the decorations are out in full force.

E insisted that because Peter the Bus Driver let her sit in the driver's seat, all future bus drivers should let her do the same.  Jason the Bus Driver was game (mainly because he was also our driver on the trip to Scotland and so knew E's personality all too well.)

What could be more perfect than a Shakespeare head gingerbread cookie to round out our day at Stratford-upon-Avon.