Straight talk: Stratford on Avon is less amazeballs than I expected.  It’s a tourist town filled with postcards and bric a brac and tea shoppes all up and down the streets.  There are Shakespearean quotes everywhere and street performers busking for a quid or two.  The damp weather doesn’t help and I feel a bit steamy in my triple layers.

Shakespeare’s birthplace is interesting as his rise to fame and fortune. He was from a solidly middle class family.  Married a woman 6 years older.  Had multiple children, most of whom died young.  The rooms are low and small and yet were undoubtably comfortable for the period.  Once again I skim, admire, move on.  My husband reads every caption and dutifully photographs objects in low light.

The garden is enchanting – a beautifully layered mix of grasses and flowers.  Roses climb the building walls – flat, single blooms in pink and deep red.  It’s envy-inducing.  California doesn’t grow like this.

I see wattle and daub and learn what a “tester bed” is – more phrases from my reading. 

The “new home” on the site of the “original home” is well documented, much treasured  and a fitting tribute to the town’s favorite son.  It is artistic and literary and as rain begins falling, very atmospheric.

Our group is mostly docile, dripping, milling about.  We have finished the new home and are waiting for an on-off bus in the mizzle.  Our tour escort leaves us with Santa as she has food poisoning and needs to sort that out with a chemist.  Santa is not so good with logistics or planning and he’s got 20 tourists hanging out waiting for something to happen.  His anecdotes are no substitute for actual facts and the group is getting restless.  Some of the ladies smell blood in the water and are attacking him with pointed questions about the bard. 

After a lengthy wait we board a bus and are commanded by the operator to put on special headphones so we can hear the commentary.  She’s not taking no for an answer and she’s not sharing personal information.  We learn about commerce, the plague and how people handled illness in those days. (They tended to die)  We are learning about Elizabethan life and it’s grim, let me tell you.  My tour companions are delighted.  I nap against Les’ shoulder.

Our group disembarks at Anne Hathaway’s cottage which is beautifully landscaped and very well preserved.  The house has low doorways and period furniture and knowledgeable docents.  It’s an interesting 20 minute tour and then we are ready to return to town for promised free time.  Unfortunately we don’t have individual bus tickets to get back.  Also unfortunately the next bus driver doesn’t know Santa and won’t let anyone on without a ticket.  Our group reassembles at the bus stop and waits grumpily for Santa to join us and get us on the next bus, which is about a 30 minute wait.  It’s raining again and no one wants to walk a mile back to town.  We are hungry and damp and a bit mutinous but there aren’t a lot of options.

Finally our chariot arrives and we slog into seats and doze back to the town.  Everyone hares off in different directions.  The Connecticut faction is looking for the oldest pub in town.  The sisters meander off the main drag.  I drag Les in the opposite direction because my mood isn’t great and I need food and no distractions.  We duck into a café that luckily serves “afternoon tea for one” with a nice selection of sandwiches and meat pies for those otherwise inclined.  Hot milky tea and a ginormous scone with Devonshire cream and jam go a long way to lifting my mood.  In good spirits we return to our lodging.

Dinner is early and on the far side of town at the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The good news is they are willing to open up and serve us dinner.  The bad news is that the company is on break and there will be no behind the scenes tour or performance.  The weather, which has been mizzling on and off all day, morphs into a driving rain.  We huddle in the doorway and await admittance.  Santa entertains us with more stories, namedrops Judi Dench and does a little soft shoe to accompany a vaudeville song.   The mutinous spirit returns but just in time we are let in, ushered past the gift shop which remains closed, and seated upstairs in a nice restaurant with a great view of the river being bombarded with buckets of rain.  Dinner is not amazing:

The starter is a “fish cake” topped with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce over a frisee.  It’s fried, crunchy and not terrible.

The entrée is pasta primavera.  Long fettucine noodles, a few overcooked vegetables, greasy cream sauce, unspiced and very little flavor.  These people don’t use garlic. 

Dessert is a big finish – coffee mousse in a bitter chocolate cup topped with a baked merengue and a chocolate straw.   There is unidentified greenery draped artistically over the plate.  But it’s very tasty and coma inducing and almost makes up for the pasta.

I finish my meal with a cup of terrible tea that’s been polluted with coffee.  Blech.

Stratford, I expected better.

We set off into the downpour to a local theater and see a well reviewed (but not very uplifting) play.  (Neville’s Island if you are interested; there is a movie; I don’t recommend) The sky is clear when we leave and the walk back to the hotel is uneventful.  We sleep.