Stratford Upon Avon

I loved our visit to Stratford Upon Avon. It was so fun to see all of these old farms and cottages and be able to associate them with Shakespeare. I feel like I put him on a pedestal sometimes and forget that he grew up in normal circumstances. It was neat to see the reenactments and to try to imagine what Shakespeare's childhood might have been like.

These pictures were taken at Mary Arden's farm, Shakespeare's mother's birthplace. They had a meal reenactment inside where we learned about where everyone would sit and what the workers' lives would have been like.

Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, had a cottage with beautiful gardens and a charming ambiance. While walking through some of the rooms in the house I learned that the people of that time were very superstitious. They made their beds short so you couldn't lay completely flat. They thought you looked dead if you laid straight on your back and brought bad luck.

Shakespeare lived in this Tudor house until he was about ten-years-old. There was a strange man inside the window seal dressed in black reciting soliloquies from Hamlet. He was quite passionate about it, he really gave my Hamlet performance a run for its money.