The first place we went was Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. Funny story, he was 18 and she was 26 when they got married. Why did they get married with a rather strange generation gap? Because he got her pregnant. Whoops!
After the cottage, we went to Mary Arden's Farm. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mom. The farm is still a working farm, and I really liked it a lot. They even had ripening cheese in the servants room! Stinky!
Then we left Stratford for good. It would be heartbreaking...if we hadn't hit up Oxford next!Oxford was wonderful! The campus is built all over the city and is not centralized at all. one minute you are looking at a pub, then at the History Faculty building. Now you are looking at a castle, and now the Bodleian Library! Really cool city.
One of the Major tourist attractions is Christ's Church. This is where a lot of the scenes from Harry Potter were filmed.
The most notable room in Christ's Church is the great hall from Harry Potter! The great hall actually wasn't filmed here, but Hollywood modeled their own set after this room, and just left the ceiling off. So cool!
One of my most favorite buildings in Oxford was the Bodleian Library. We couldn't get into the actual library part, but we got into one of the rooms; see if you recognize it...
No? That is okay. If didn't recognize it until someone told me. In the first Harry Potter movie, this is the infirmary. In the Goblet of Fire, this is where the students are learning how to dance for the Yule Ball. The room was awesome! Check out the Ceiling and the side door!
Can you guess what this building is used for? How about a reading room? Yeah, great idea! Lets make a magnificent building and have it be a reading room! I love it. I wish we could go inside, but it is for students only. I really wanted to read in there!
Take a look at this little pub. It is very, very special:
The actual name for it is the Eagle and Child, but most people call it the Bird and Baby. A group of writers called "The Inklings" met here every Tuesday from 1939 to 1962 to drink and discuss literature and simply be intelligent. Two of the most famous Inklings are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Here I am reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis in front of the place where he may have written part of it! I am in awe.
The last thing we hit up in Oxford was the castle. We came to the place on the map where the Castle was supposed to be, and this is what we found:
Not much of a castle, if you ask me. But then walk around the back and...
Vwalla! A castle! I love England. Things really do feel magical here, especially the castles that come out of no where!
I LOVED Oxford too!!!...although I hadn't read any of the Harry Potter books then, and we didn't see the Hogwarts attractions. That would have been way cool!
ReplyDeleteI want to go to Oxford...like be a student there. Wouldn't that be great!?!