Warwick Castle

We were a little bit better at getting out of bed today and Kerry ushered us into the car for a visit to Warwick Castle, though our first stop was back to The Oaken Arms as my jacket had decided to stay the night. Warwick is the second castle we’ve been to, and probably the first we’ve actually gone inside properly. Fortunately the weather was a lot better than yesterday so we were able to wander through the castle grounds without too much worry. What we were concerned about were the couples, as it was Valentines Day and none of us were too pleased at the thought of suddenly bumping into an exceedingly mushy couple.

We needn’t have feared as there were quite a few tourists at the castle but none of them were over the top. We walked through the halls and spoke to one of the ‘musicians’ before seeing King Henry VIII and his six wives. Our next stop was the castle dungeon, as entry was free for that specific day. To walk around in the dark isn’t that bad, but some of the performances included being sprayed with a ‘full’ bladder, being sprayed with the blood from a ‘beheading’ and myself being selected to walk into a dark room by myself and walk towards the light at the end. It wasn’t all that pleasant, especially as someone jumped out at me in a later room and I nearly jumped out of my skin! But it was a great experience and really well done.

We passed through the Kingmaker exhibition before having our turn at pulling out Excalibur. Then we spent the next portion of our day climbing up one of the towers and back down to walk on the wall. We missed our first exit out, because then we had to climb up and down two more towers before we were eventually able to escape from the 500+ stairs. My legs hadn’t had such a workout since Notre Dame.

We left the castle and proceeded to head towards Stratford, but as it was getting late, and the Tom Tom decided to confuse the direction it was going in, we decided to have a break for food and go back to the cottage. Kerry thought she’d take us on the scenic route, which the navigator now seemed fine with and we ended up passing through Stratford regardless!

For a romantic Valentines Day evening we ate homemade white chocolate mousse and champagne cheesecakes, as Justine was educated by watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Although we didn’t think we’d make it, Justine and I stayed up and managed to get all six episodes into the one night. And what a night it was.