Mom + Dad = Me: Last Weekend for sightseeing!

Friday afternoon we decided to go north for our last weekend of sightseeing. We went to Shakespeare country and stayed at a Holiday Inn in a town called Solilull. On Saturday we went to a really neat castle called Warwick castle. What we liked about this castle was it was a real castle, but they brought it to life with Knights, Princesses, and different shows like Jousting. It was really geared towards the kids with little treats even for the adults. We started the day with walking through the grounds towards the castle. We passed by an area where you could pay for your child to go to Knight School. We watched a guy dressed like a knight and he was showing the kids how to do different things with swords. The kids were having a ball and we loved watching them. What little boy (and some girls) wouldn’t love to play swords with a knight?

We went to an area called The River Bank. They had a show where they demonstrated how to use a Trebuchet. They had the world’s largest Trebuchet in full swing. The instrument was key factor in the mediaeval warfare. They used members from the audience to walk the wheel to make it work. It flung a heavy ball a long ways down a field. It was quite impressive.

After the show we walked down the river to see the mill part of the castle. There were some engines that had produced electricity for the castle. The view was great from there with the waterfall and gardens upstream. It was time for the jousting show with the knights. The put on a pretty good show. We enjoyed it and here are some pictures.

It was time for lunch so we found a bench and fed Paul and John got us some barbeque. Not what you are thinking….it was hamburgers. Actually mine was a hamburger and John’s was a sausage burger. They were both good. We went to see the actual castle after lunch. We got to see the Great Hall, they family chapel, a bedroom, sitting room, and room that had a mannequin’s of Henry VIII and each of his 6 wives. They were having a wedding there later that afternoon so we got to see the tables set real pretty for that.

They also had an area where they showed different scenes of what it was like back in the castle days, complete with mannequins and props. They had a tour of the dungeon you could take, but I think it was pretty scary because you couldn’t take kids under 10 years old. Needless to say we skipped that one. We did go around the castle wall and into three different towers, two of which had very steep narrow stairwells. They told us there were 530 steps on that part of the castle tour. It was worth it though because the views were awesome. I carried Paul in the front carrier, but faced him towards me because I knew he was getting tired. Before we got up to the main keep (tower) he was asleep and didn’t wake up until we were done and putting him back into his pushchair (stroller). I can’t believe he slept the whole time I was going down those steep and narrow stairs. I guess we really wore him out.

Looking down from tallest part

Paul with the sword and the stone.

When we were finished with the castle, we went to the gardens. They had some real pretty flowers and bushes carved like peacocks. The reason for the peacock bushes was because they had peacocks roaming all around those gardens. One even had a little baby with her. There were peacocks laying and walking on top of the bushed. They were real pretty birds. After the gardens we headed back to the car.

We went back to the hotel because it had a pool and we wanted to take Paul before the kids hours were over with for the day. This was the first time he had been in a pool. I knew he would love it because he loves his baths. He had a ball and smiled and laughed the whole time. John and I took turns getting in the hot tub. They had a really nice gym and sauna too, but we didn’t have time to use them. We went back to our room and then got ready to go have dinner. I am just finishing the blog post and will try to post tonight barring I don’t have any trouble uploading from the hotel.