Today was another day with a reasonably long drive ahead of
us. We had slight detours, as per usual,
in other words we got lost, but, by doing this we have seen some wonderful
small villages and always got to our destination!! We had to go to Warwick Castle today as we
pre bought the tickets online. If you
buy them at least 7 days ahead you can save 40%, but silly us, we bought them 6
days ahead. Kylie read comments last
night about Warwick Castle by visitors, there was a mixed bag of comments, if
we didn’t pre-purchase the tickets ahead of time we might not have gone BUT I
am so glad we did. This is an amazing
place. There was oodles of parking
available and as usual you had to pay, in my opinion for the price they charge
for entry parking should be free. The
first visions of the castle are amazing, as it is up on a hill and is so
big. Near the entrance was a stockade,
so we got a lady to take our photo in it, I was the village idiot and Kylie, the
drunkard. There is a restored Victorian rose
garden that was opened by Princess Diana near the entrance, so we had a meander
through that as well.
Warwick Castle is over 1,000 years old it was under the
stewardess of the Earls of Warwick till 1978, it is now owned by Merlin
Entertainments Group (they also own Madame Tussauds) who have spent over £6,000,000
in the last 10 years alone on restoration.
Here is a timeline on the history and restoration http://www.warwick-castle.com/explore-castle/history-and-restoration.aspx
Upon entry we were greeted by many dressed in costumes from
the time. We watched rat-throwing and
decided to have a go, talk about embarrassing ourselves! First throw of Kylies was straight up in the
air, I laughed so much that I did exactly the same :-/ … next throw was straight
along the ground for both of us … the rat-catcher condemned us back to
Australia, but we decided to go to the Goal instead! This was a very dark, damp, miserable
place. Many previous occupants were left
there to die without food or water. We
went on a ghost tour after this, where a very entertaining chap took us on a 30
minute tour and told some funny stories of treachery, murder and ‘carry-ons’. Then we were off to explore the castle
ourselves.
The Kingmaker exhibition was first up, this is various
displays of times in the castle throughout it’s history under the rule of the
various kings. It is great the group who
own Tussaud’s, own this as the displays as so life like with the waxwork
models. So much money has been spent on
presentation.
The Victorian house section was so funny. It was lovingly restored as it was in that period of time, with hidden extras! A lady named Daisy lived there and told the story of her affairs with several notable men. As there are many hidden rooms everywhere, you could hear recordings of so called “carrying on’s” behind the hidden doors! It was well done.
The great hall was magnificent with displays of armour and weaponry. This lead onto an older section of the building
that was from the 1700’s all decked out magnificently. The oak panelling and detail of plaster work
is mind blowing. At the end was a room
with Henry VIII and his wives. Of course
my camera went flat during this section so I have no pictures from here on,
just a few on my phone.
There is a ‘walk’ through the towers that has 520
stairs. Warnings are placed at the
beginning about how many stairs, how you cannot go back etc. So off we went, the first section wasn’t too
bad, we had wonderful views over the castle grounds, then it started, tiny
spiral staircases that went on and on and on … the views at top were amazing,
views over the whole of Warwick, of course no photos L. Just when you thought it was over, more tiny
spiral staircases and even higher up, some people were so red and hot I thought
they were going to collapse. It was
about 28 degrees, nice and warm to me, but hot to the English, they were acting
as if it was 38 degrees. The downward climb was just as bad, the stairs are so
small, you really had to concentrate not to over step them.
The finale was the trebuchet, which is the largest in the
world, measuring 18 metres high and weighing in at 22 tonnes. We walked back to the car through the peacock
gardens, which have topiaries of peacocks and also real ones wandering around showing
everyone their wonderful display of feathers!
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