This weekend it was a long weekend in the UK. Seeing as we hadn’t seen some places still left in the UK we took this opportunity to explore them, that and airports are always super mental on these weekends.
Saturday
First stop on the train trip weekend was to Stratford-upon-Avon, Birthplace of William Shakespeare. Some of you regular readers will know that Glen visited here back in 2007 with his free tour of the UK
A semi early train of 9:10am had us there at 11:15. Getting off the train and heading into to town to find out what there was to do we decided to walk to the tourist information centre just to you know make sure we were doing the right tourist things. In the wet cold rain with our umbrellas held over our heads we trudged off down the road, only to find that the information centre had moved and was now back at the centre of town. We took the time to have a look around at the canal boats and a monument to Shakespeare. The information centre held nothing of new interest to us. By this time I (Glen) was getting cold. I had decided not to take a jacket and had on only a thin jumper. Searching the shops for a cheap option I settled on a white pull over. Now all nice and warm but still annoyed at the rain. We went to Shakespeare birth house.
We were lucky enough to get tickets off some friends who had been there at Easter. The tickets last for a year and they had them for all the houses. So with our free entry we went along to visit the houses which were close to town. [ok so its not a good thing to rip of a historical preservation society and I know all the money is put to good use but I am a poor back packer. When I am a multimillionaire I promise to come back and give them money for 2 full price Adults.]
We ended up walking around 4 of the 5 houses with a nice walk, although long to get to Anne Hathaway’s (his wife) family home. The others were a dig site to work out the floor plan of one of his homes which was demolished by a future tenant. Another was the house his daughter lived in with her husband.
We took the time to go and see his grave inside the local church. Last time I was there I could not visit it as there was a wedding taking place. We finished our day in Stratford-upon-Avon by having a delicious meal in a pub before making our way home on the train. It felt like one of the longest train trips we had taken in ages although it was only 2.5hrs long.
Sunday
Up early to head off and see the 2nd town for the weekend. We were on our way to Cambridge. An early train at 8:30am meant another early start. The good thing about the train to Cambridge is that its only 1hr from London so no epic hauls like the day before. We walked what felt like a long time to the centre of town. Deciding like the day before we wanted to see what the tourist information centre had to offer. Finding that it was closed until 11am we had about an hr to kill so a little walk around some market stall, with Kieran and I both picking up new belts. We then went for some coffee, hot chocolate and scones right near the city square.
Making our way back to the information centre only to realise every other tourist had the same idea we reluctantly joined the queue. We left booked onto a walking tour which was about to start in 10mins and a self punt hire along the back of the universities.
The walking tour was good and a decent amount of time was spent walking in 2 of the Uni grounds and learning about the history.
When that finished at 2 we went for a bite to eat in a pub. A pub which is where the announcement for finding DNA was made and a ceiling which has WW2 RAF pilots names burnt onto it. With bellies full of food and drink. What a perfect time to go punting. There was a real trick to punting as we found out and good thing we got some tips from one of the drivers before giving it a go ourselves. Only having an hr to play around on this thing we set off to go up river. Trying to battle all the other punts and stay on course. There were a few shunts here and there, at one point Kieran almost fell in as the pole got stuck in the mud. None of us fell in though we all stayed dry and had a good time on the river.
After the watercraft experience we went for a walk around the town to see what the other parts held. Mostly it was due to Glen wanting to go find some beer expo he saw was on “today” in the tourist centre. Finding the correct park and discovering there was no beer we walked back and ducked into the first pub we saw for a cheeky beer. Having eating so late in the day none of us were very hungry. It was time to leave and catch our train back to London.
Thinking we had enough time to make it back to the station we started to walk. As time when on and we realised we were still so far away from the station we had to run. As we approached Kieran saw a train going back to London leaving in 1 min. She legged it for that train while Kelly and I walked slowly as she had just disappeared from view to the wrong platform. Yelling at us from the carriage to get on and looking at us like we were mad for not running like crazy to the same train as her. We hoped on the carriage told Kieran this was not the correct train but we will take it anyway as it still goes to the same location. This ended our day trip in Cambridge as we pulled away from the station hot, puffed and somewhat sweaty.
Monday
Completely shattered by the busy and tourist life of the weekends and travelling by trains we woke early once more to hope back on a train. Today we were off to a tiny village called Great Bradley. The reason for trekking all the way to this tiny village was to have a look around and see a church where Glens ancestors were baptised, married, and buried over 150 years ago.
Taking the train back to Cambridge as there was nothing going directly to the village. We then took a bus for an hour to another village called Haverhill which is 6 miles (just under 10KM) away from Great Bradley. From there we took a taxi to the village.
Having a walk around and a very long look at a church, longer than I think I have spent in any church. We took lots of picture to mark the occasion. I (glen) must say that it is a very strange feeling to walk in the footsteps (possibly the exact same) as family members over 150years ago! You can’t really describe the feeling but there is definitely one there, a feeling, a sense of history.
Time for lunch in the local sports field, not much else to look at so we headed back to the village by taxi, then the bus back to Cambridge and hopped on the early train for London so we could rest after our very busy weekend.
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