The GCW Tour, A Few Bits of the UK and Ireland: More Rocks, This Time with a Hollywood Influence

So the next day we abandoned Bath and headed for Stratford-upon-Avon. You can't take kids that have been reading Shakespeare for the past few years and not drag them to Stratford (but more on that later). 

Armed with our English Heritage map, we decided to first stop at Castle Kenilworth...

Kenilworth is a great castle, truly, but there are two problems with it. First, when you start up the audio guide (yeah, yeah) it starts talking about the defenses of the castle and explaining that while the site of the castle was chosen because it was close to the Welsh border, most of the defenses of the castle aren't actually pointed at Wales because the castle was built (improved?) by King John, who was generally despised by the nobles, so the defenses were mostly directed at them.

And from that point on I really couldn't get the main set piece of Disney's Robin Hood (having seen it a few weeks ago on the Frozen Cruise) out of my head. So I'm picturing foxes and bears and lions all hoping around and shooting arrows. It was kind of distracting.

The second problem comes when you start reading all the little informative signs everywhere. Kenilworth Castle isn't really important because of King John; rather, it's important because of Queen Elizabeth number something or other (aka, the Virgin Queen) and Robert Dudley. In my short and probably not entirely accurate version, the story goes that QE would've married Dudley, if she could, but she couldn't so she didn't. However, the two were "close." So instead she gave him this castle, though for some twenty years she wouldn't let him leave her side to go visit it, but eventually he moved to the castle and refurbished it, so it would be in good shape to receive the queen on her more or less annual pilgrimages around the country during which her longest stays were typically here.

And if you're starting to picture Noises Off, or one of those other bedroom comedies, it gets worse.

When you look at the paintings of Dudley they have distributed around the site (and in the guide book), he actually looks quite a bit like Joseph Fiennes, who played him in the movie. So now, in addition to picturing foxes and bears and lions hiding behind curtains and hoping in and out of doorways, now I'm picturing Joseph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett doing the same.

In short, the Hollywood influence on this one is kind of distracting.

But if you can get past that, it's got lovely views...

Some very nice crumbly bits...

A storeroom that, if it had been my castle, I would've made my bedroom...

(And I wasn't the only one of that opinion...)

Plus it's educational. The boys and I learned that any garden, no matter how nice...

Is greatly improved by having a dilapidated castle in the background....

And that a medieval stable is a very nice place for a cafe...

So all things considered, Kenilworth is not a bad place to spend a couple of hours....

Provided it's been awhile since you've watched Robin Hood (or Elizabeth).