Kennilworth Castle

June 10th

Boarding a coach at 6:45am doesn't mean you are really awake. That was certainly the case with us. The whole class took a three day trip Stratford-Upon-Avon. Our true purpose was to see Shakespeare sites, but we did much more than that.

Thank goodness I could have two seats to myself. After a nice nap we arrived at Coventry Cathedral. During WWII Winston Churchill knew the town was going to be bombed and had to make a difficult decision; protect the town and reveal they had broken the Nazi's code OR allow the town to be decimated and use the key knowledge to end the war later. Since this is the view from the middle of the cathedral, you know what happened. 

It was a really pretty place. I would have liked to walk to cemetery to see the divots in the ground where the bombs were dropped, but we were there for less than a half hour. That was fine.

An old house in Coventry. The Tudor style is authentic. England is so impressive. We don't have anything that old in the states.

Next Stop: Kennilworth Castle

Here is Justyne in front of the ruins. The weather was beautiful, which means we ran around singing and then having a photo shoot at the shell of a palace. I don't know why this castle is so destroyed since lots of its contemporaries still stand.

I like this castle. ANOTHER! 

I'm running out of poses. Too many pictures.... if there is even such a thing.

Getting to this ledge to take pictures was tricky since there were giant puddles everywhere. That, and some pigeon was out to get me. He dislodged a rock almost as big as my phone and it fell about a foot away from my head. Talk about freaky. I thought the castle was about to cave in.

Not that we don't always feel like divas, but walking around this castle was extra princessy. You can't help but imagine you are a royal walking around in the heyday.

What is a castle without gardens? These gardens were built exclusively for Queen Elizabeth. She and Dudley, the man who owned the castle, had a very close relationship and almost got married. If anyone knows a movies about their love story, I would love to watch it. In our prep class for the program, this was the castle I did my presentation on.

Bird's eye view of the once Great Hall.

You can climb all the way to the top and see the whole property.

And what is a castle without a dungeon? I'm not sure if that's what these creepy cellars were, but they sure were dark.

Around the side of the castle we found this path leading to a hill with a big drop off. Needless to say, Justyne and I both burst out in, "I want adventure in the great wide, somewhere!..."

While we were standing on the top of the hill we heard the whistle from Hunger Games several times. We tried to repeat it back and were spinning around until we finally saw Jace emerge from this tree. He's a sneaky one.

I love this picture. Justyne looks epic. 

We stood at the top of the hill talking to Jace and he told us to come see the tree he had found. The quickest way was down. It looked just like the hill from Princess Bride (except not as long, don't worry) so I had to roll down it. Justyne was really nervous, but Jace insisted I would be fine. Just before I did it Brooke came along and told me I was going to gain too much velocity and hit the tree at the bottom. I decided to scoot down the hill almost halfway before going into a full on roll. This is Justyne from about where I started rolling. I highly reccomend rolling down that hill. It was tons of fun. I did get a rash later though and crazy allergies. I've never had an allergic reaction to anything before. It was quite the experience. If you do roll down the hill from the top, I think Brooke was right and you will hit a tree. Try to aim at the wall farther back so you have enough time to stop. Screaming all the way down is also necessary. 

Jace's tree had branches hanging so low that it created this alcove you could stand up in and walk around without people from the outside being able to see you. Here is Justyne on the outside since she didn't want to risk the chance of getting her knees muddy. Jace said you just have to, "do the hobbit-walk."

I like this door! Pictures commence.

We were at Kennilworth Castle for around two hours. It was enough time to explore the ruins, grounds, and exhibition in the other tower. I always love a good castle, but this one was a favorite.

This day use to be one giant blog post, but I decided to split it into two. Our coach ride to Stratford continues with, Warwick Castle.