Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Stratford-upon-Avon.

It had long been a dream of ours to see the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and today we would finally do it. After lunch at the Old Mill Café, we drove 45 minutes to get to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. Anne is famous for, in 1582 at the age of 26, marrying the 18-year-old William Shakespeare while being three months pregnant.  Fodor’s calls the cottage “the most picturesque of the Shakespeare Trust properties.” Anne’s father was a wealthy sheep farmer who owned about 90 acres of land and a two-room house. The house was later doubled to its present size, but not while Anne lived there. The thatched roof of the house is its most prominent feature.

One of the bedrooms contains a bed that was reputedly their wedding bed, but not in this house. After the wedding they lived first with his parents. A chair is reputedly the chair in which William courted Anne. The Trust has done a nice job of furnishing the house with period furniture. Guides stationed in the house explained its history and how it would have looked when Anne lived there.  The family continued to occupy the house until the early 20^th century. A beautiful garden behind the house is planted in Edwardian style. In Anne’s day, it would have been part of the family’s sheep farm.

We drove to the Windsor Street car park, less than a block from Shakespeare’s birthplace. Like the Hathaway house, the Shakespeare house has been much altered since he lived there. Today it is a museum honoring the bard and a restoration of an Elizabethan house. Displayed in the modern visitor center, connected to the house, is a first folio of Shakespeare’s work. Charles Dickens was involved in preserving the house as an historical site when it was put up for public auction in 1847.

Next on our itinerary was Holy Trinity Church, the site of Shakespeare’s grave, as well as the church in which he was baptized. No one knows where he was married; none of the local churches have a record of his marriage. Jutting out from the wall above his grave is a marble bust created in 1626 and thought to be an accurate likeness of him.

We got a great parking place on the street right outside the Royal Shakespeare Company’s theater and walked up Sheep Street to our dinner reservation at Lamb’s of Sheep Street. Since the restaurant didn’t open until 5:00, the time of our reservation, we popped into the Rose & Crown pub for a drink. We watched some World Cup highlights. At the half, Uruguay was beating Saudi Arabia 1-0, which turned out to be the final score. Earlier in the day, Ronaldo had scored a nice header against Morocco to carry Portugal to a 1-0 victory.

For dinner I had the best lamb chops ever, Abby enjoyed duck breast, and Chris and Laurie both dined on lobster thermidor. We dined in half-timbered splendor on the second floor of Lamb’s. It was a short walk down hill to the Royal Shakespeare Company. We saw an interesting production of Romeo and Juliet, done in modern attire. Chris and Laurie had previously played the significant parts of the friar and the nurse in the play; it was interesting to hear their commentary during the drive home on darkening roads.

This was our last full day in Europe. The next day would be a travel day – a 2-1/2 hour drive to Heathrow, a long wait at the airport, and then an eight-hour flight to MSP. This was a great trip, and it ended on a high note, a pilgrimage to see Shakespeare’s birthplace and a modern production of one of his plays. It was a great visit in the Cotswolds with Chris and Laurie. Ireland was also spectacular, with the renewal of our wedding vows through an ancient Ogham stone in a 12-century churchyard. As always, it was with great excitement that we left on this near-perfect vacation, and now it is with great anticipation that we return home to the familiar joys of Minnesota – our urban life in St. Paul and our rural retreat in northern Aitkin County.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018. The Rollright Stones and Hidcote Manor Garden

After breakfasting on

poached eggs and toast, we took off for the Rollright Stones while Chris and Laurie went for a walk. The King’s Men stone circle was built around 2500 B.C., but was not a burial site. They are oolitic limestone, are very heavily weathered, and covered with lichen. The circle stands about 31 meters in diameter. This is the easternmost stone circle in Britain. Experts believe that the circle originally was continuous with a portal. About 105 stones remain. Near the circle was a set of three women dancing in a circle that was constructed out of sticks. Abby calls them the willow wiccans.

Four hundred meters east of the stone circle is the Whispering Knights, a portal dolmen burial chamber that dates from 3500 B.C., approximately when farming began in the area. At one time these portal dolmen were thought to have originally been within a long barrow, but recent excavations suggest that they were originally free-standing and intended to impress people. Unfortunately the capstone fell off in the 18^th century so it is not as impressive as it used to be. It may have taken 60 people over a month to move and erect the stones.

The last of the Rollright Stones is the King Stone, across the highway from the other two monuments. It marks a Bronze Age burial site and dates from about 1500 B.C. There was a Bronze Age round cairn nearby, as well as a Bronze Age barrow nearby, neither of which were clearly distinguishable today.

We got back in the car and drove another 13 miles or so to Hidcote Manor Garden. Fodor’s calls Hidcote  “arguably the most interesting and attractive large garden in Britain.” The garden was created by an American, Lawrence Johnston, in phases between 1907 and 1938. He gifted Hidcote to the National Trust in 1948. Johnston brought back specimen plants from all over the world.

The garden is separated into “rooms” that are divided by hedges or walls. We visited the old garden, the red borders garden the beech “allee,” the long borders garden, the orchard and the lily pond. The long borders garden was Abby’s favorite; it had delphinium that was over six feet tall and thistle plants that were ten feet tall. Plants grow much larger here than at home. Near the entrance is a spirea bush that is 20 feet tall and 20 feet in diameter. It is pruned to look like a tree.  According to Fodor’s, “Besides the variety of plants, what’s impressive are the different effects created, from calm open spaces to areas packed with flowers.”

On the way back to the Mill Stream Cottage, Abby picked some blue flowers by the side of the road to freshen the bouquet that had been left for us by the cottage manager. At about 4:00 p.m., Chris, Laurie and I walked next door to the Old Mill Café to have cream tea with scones. Laurie had coffee-flavored cake with her tea. Chris had breakfast tea while I drank peppermint tea.

Monday, June 18, 2018. Sudeley Castle and English Football.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, we set off for Sudeley Castle and Gardens, just 14 miles away, Sudeley has been associated with several royal families, the first of which was the Saxon king, Ethelred the Unready. Coincidentally, Abby and I have been listening to an audio book about Ethelred’s wife. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the massacre of all the Danes in the kingdom, which led to a Danish military invasion and Ethelred’s replacement by King Canute. Sudeley was inherited by Ethelred’s daughter, Princess Goda.

Later, at the time of the Norman Conquest, the estate was owned by Earl Harold de Sudeley. The estate was mentioned in the Domesday Book and its rate of taxation was listed as “12 hides.” The tourist guide to the estate drily notes, “These days, the assessment is somewhat higher.” The de Sudeley family took Matilda’s side in the 12^th-century civil war, and the estate was confiscated by the rival claimant to the throne, Steven. The estate was restored to the de Sudeley family after the war ended.

In 1461 the estate was owned by a family member named Ralph Botelier who backed the Lancastrians in the War of the Roses. When the Yorkist Edward IV took the throne he seized the estate and gave it to his brother, the future Richard III. The castle remained in royal hands until Queen Mary granted it to Sir John Chandos and elevate him to a peerage as Baron Chandos of Sudeley. The Chandos family backed the crown in the English Civil War, which led to the castle being “slighted” by Parliament, meaning the castle was made indefensible and its roof was removed.

In 1830 the estate was purchased by the Dent family, wealthy glove makers. This family had enough money to restore the castle several times since then and now makes money by selling tours of the estate and books that describe it for 5 pounds each.

The estate’s biggest historical claim to fame is that Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife, died and was buried there. She is to this day the only Queen of England to be buried in a private residence. In the 18^th century her coffin was discovered by the wall of an old chapel, and she was then re-interred in a fine sarcophagus in the estate’s St. Mary’s church. The church contains some brilliantly-colored stained glass windows, including one depicting Katherine Parr, Henry VIII and Thomas Seymour.

The estate’s biggest artistic claim to fame is an Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) oil portrait of Rubens. Van Dyck worked for Rubens in his studio and created a very lively portrait of him looking downward with a pleasant expression on his face, which is lit from above. The portrait is in the family’s private rooms, which we were allowed to view, but were not allowed to take pictures of.

The estate has some interesting artifacts in its collection, including a robe worn by the future Queen Elizabeth I when she was christened as a baby. They also have a collection of memorabilia of the Duke of Wellington, including a clipping of mane from his horse, Copenhagen. The estate is surrounded by beautiful set of formal gardens. In one of them a documentary about roses was being filmed for a show called Better Homes and Gardens. The knot garden contains a hedge in the shape of a Celtic knot. Also in the gardens is a "living statue" of Queen Elizabeth I.  We ate lunch in the estate’s restaurant and then returned to the Mill Stream Cottage in Lower Slaughter.

At 6:00 p.m. we went to the Kingsbridge Inn, a pub in Bourton-on-the-Water to have a pub supper and to watch the England v. Tunisia world cup soccer game on television. There were England flags, also advertising Carlsberg Lager, in the windows. England scored early and the pub erupted in cheering. Later in the first half, Tunisia got a penalty kick that I thought was rather strictly called. The announcers at half time and after the game pointed out that the referee did not call a similar foul on Tunisia at the other end of the field. We were so disappointed by the call that we left the pub and went back to the Mill Stream Cottage to watch the second half. Toward the end of the game, during stoppage time, England scored the winning goal to make the final score 2-1. It was a satisfying day.

Sunday, June 17, 2018. Traveling to the Cotswolds.

We said good-bye to Gregan’s Castle Hotel at about 9:15 a.m. and headed toward Shannon airport. At the car return location, the agent found a small dent in the left front fender that was not caused when we were in the car. It would cost us the 250-euro deduction on the car insurance to pay for the damage. There were a lot of soldiers wearing U.S. Army uniforms in the airport, but I did not see any on our flight to London Heathrow.

Our rental car in London, a Ford Focus, had GPS as requested. What a treat! At one point the GPS failed to track our location and we had to pull off the freeway, park the car and turn it off and then on again to reboot the GPS, which started right back up again and we had no further problems with it. It led us to Lower Slaughter but since we did not have an exact address, it did not lead us to the Mill Stream Cottage. Abby got out and asked the employee at the Old Mill gift shop for directions, but did not use exactly the right name for the cottage. As we studied the paper map, we realized that we needed to go around the block and approach the old mill from the other side. As we did so, there was Chris’s face in the window of the Mill Stream Cottage. We had arrived!

We were warmly greeted by Chris and Laurie, who had already been in Europe for three weeks. They got us something to drink and then some hors d’oeuvres. After a good chat, Laurie fixed some baked haddock filets with roasted vegetables for dinner. We were glad to have arrived at our destination with any serious problems and to back together with our good friends, Chris and Laurie.

Saturday, June 16, 2018. The Cliffs of Moher and the Burren.

We met Martina in the hotel lobby at about 9:00 a.m. for our tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. Martina was good about asking us what we had seen already and what we would like to see. We quickly established that there was no desire to go into the city of Galway on a Saturday morning. We had seen enough of Dublin, Cork and Killarney and didn’t need to see any more Irish cities. We also said that we are not big on shopping, something which she was going to poke fun at later.

Our first stop was St. Brigid’s well, which lies between Liscannor and the Cliffs of Moher. This is one of the oldest wells in Ireland reputed to have healing powers, which means no one knows how old it is. Martina said that the water is good for the joints. A whitewashed building has been built around the well to protect its pilgrims from rain. Inside the building is a shrine with thousands of tokens – photographs, rosaries, flowers, written prayers, etc., - placed there to memorialize someone who is sick or dying. A niche held votive candles that were still burning from previous visitors. I dipped my hand in the well and made a wet cross on Abby’s forehead, hoping that the well’s healing powers would ameliorate Abby’s arthritis.

Martina knew of an access point to the Cliffs of Moher that is on private land. For only 10 euros we parked right next to the cliffs and avoided the crowds at the visitors’ center. We had a great view of the cliffs and, best of all, it was only a short walk to get there. In a limestone wall along the footpath Martina pointed out the fossil of an ancient eel. A large black and white draft horse grazed in the pasture next to the parking lot. In the distance we could see the Aran Islands, three flat limestone islands that are home to about 1300 Irish-speaking people.

We stopped at the Doolin Cave, at first just to use the café and the restrooms, but then I decided that I wanted to see the cave. The 50-minute tour involved a metal staircase of 122 steps that would be traversed going in and coming out, so the cave was not an option for Abby, but she didn’t mind having a Diet Coke in the café while I took the tour. Martina found a well-worn copy of a book entitled, “The Burren and the Aran Islands, Exploring the Archaeology,” by Carleton Jones, which Abby read with interest while I plunged underground.

The cave is known for the largest free-hanging stalactite in the Europe, and the third-largest in the world. The stalactite is 24 feet long, according to our guide, and hangs from the ceiling like a giant chandelier. It is a curtain stalactite, meaning that the calcite-laden water that forms the stalactite flows down in patterns that leave curtains of calcium carbonate behind. The stalactite is 500,000 years old. There is a stalagmite at the bottom, but it rests on a sloping bed of clay. As the stalagmite builds up, it becomes too heavy for the clay slope to support and it topples over. This is why to the stalactite has not become a column, a stalactite and stalagmite fused together.

Martina drove us to a spot near the coast where there is a typical Burren landscape. Limestone surface rocks have been fissured by wind and water. In the fissures grow flowering plants, including both Arctic and Mediterranean species. According to Fodor’s, there are 23 native species of orchids in the Burren. We did not see any of them, but we saw many other beautiful, though small, flowering plants.

For lunch we stopped at A.E. O’Donohue’s Pub in Fanore, where the County Clare flag was flying upside-down. There was a charity bicycle ride taking place on the narrow roads, and a table full of cyclists had stopped at the pub. Each had a pint of beer in front of him, so I assume that they were through cycling for the day. Abby enjoyed pureed vegetable soup with goat cheese and salad, while I had beef and Guinness stew. Both were delicious.

We drove to Caherconnell Stone Fort, which was continuously occupied for 600 years until the beginning of the 17^th century. Inside the fort are the remains of stone houses that were occupied by local leaders of the O’Loughlin family. Two modern tents inside the fort were roped off and labeled as archeological digs.  This being Saturday, there was no archeological digging taking place.

Just a stone’s throw away is the Poulnabrone Megalithic Tomb, which dates from 3000 B.C. Of the 90 tombs in County Clare, Poulnabrone is the best-preserved and the most accessible. Excavation has found the remains of 33 people buried in the tomb. Their bodies had been allowed to decompose before their bones were buried at the site. One of the signs at the site opined that some of the stone walls in the area may have been built by the tomb-builders to mark property boundaries. It was amazing to think that some of the stone walls in the area might be 5000 years old.

Our last stop of the day was the Cathedral of Kilfenora, built in the 12^th century on the site where St. Fachtna had founded a monastery 500 years earlier. Kilfenora was named a diocese in 1152, as the Irish church transitioned from being monastery-based to being diocese-based. Inside the church were effigies of early bishops, carved in sarcophagus covers, as well as two spectacular high crosses, carved from stone. The Doorty cross had previously been broken in two. The upper part had been in the church and the lower part had been a monument on the Doorty family grave. In the 1950’s the two parts were re-joined to form a single cross again.

At this point it was 4:00 p.m. and we were about a half-hour from the Gregan’s Castle Hotel. Martina said we were entitled to another half-hour of touring and asked what we would like to see. We said that we would like to go back to the hotel and end the tour a half-hour early. Dinner at the hotel was just as good as the night before. In fact the menu was the same, only this time I had the free-range veal and Abby had monkfish. We learned all over again why the restaurant was so highly regarded. We watched the evening World Cup Soccer game on the hotel’s only television. Croatia won 2-0 over Nigeria.

Friday, June 15, 2018. Bunratty Castle and Ballyvaughan.

John put our luggage in the car at 9:38 a.m. and we headed for Adare and then for Bunratty Castle. Adare is rated as the prettiest village in Ireland, with thatched roofs and so on, but it was raining so we just stopped at the Heritage Centre for directions to Bunratty Castle and moved on. Deidre had recommended Bunratty Castle and Folk Village and it did not disappoint us. Just north of Limerick, the castle was built in 1460 and has been well preserved. It has been fully restored with 15^th-17^th century furnishings. The Bunratty Folk Park provides examples of 19^th-century housing for various types of Irish people.

We paid our entrance fee and went to P. McNamara’s Pub for lunch. The pub was full and service was slow. Abby ordered the ham and cheddar sandwich and a bowl of pureed vegetable soup. I had the Irish smoked salmon plate, which consisted of two slices of smoked salmon and a lettuce salad with tomatoes and cucumber.

We headed down hill toward the castle. We passed a couple of curraghs, traditional Irish row boats, turned upside-down to keep them from filling with rain. We stopped at the Loop Head Farm House, the house of a traditional fishing/farming family from West Clare. The family made its living by both fishing and farming, as well as by selling peat cut from the bog. The thatched roof was covered with a grid of ropes to keep it in place during Atlantic gales. The house was made of mortared stone that had been thickly whitewashed. Most of the houses in the folk park were actual buildings that had been moved to the site, which made them even more interesting.

Next was the Cashen fisherman’s house, a two-roomed home of a North Kerry fisherman. The wooden timbers and some of the furniture in this house had been made from wood salvaged from shipwrecks or from flotsam and jetsam. The floor was of rammed earth. Smuggling by fishermen brought in wine and brandy, which were preferred over beer and whiskey among the North Kerry fishermen’s families.

We marched into the castle, where our first stop was the main guard room, the main living room of the common soldiers and retainers. It is the room now used for medieval banquets. There were several elaborately carved cupboards from the 15^th and 16^th centuries. We climbed up a very narrow, one-way staircase to the Great Hall, the original banquet hall and audience chamber of the Earls of Thomond. The walls were furnished with original tapestries and an oak “dower-cupboard” from 1570. Next door was the kitchen with an enormous fireplace and large turtle shells on the wall that were used as dishes and covers.

We climbed about 20 steps to the Earl’s bedroom, where one of her ladyship’s beaded dresses was laid on the bed. We passed into the North Solar, where the chandelier is a German “leuchterweibchen,” an odd-looking mermaid made of either painted wood or porcelain. Abby went back down to the Great Hall, while I climbed about 40 steps up to the battlements, where there was a nice view of the Ratty River at low tide, with the Shannon estuary in the distance.

We exited the castle and visited the Mountain Farmhouse, a poor farmer’s house of a type found in Limerick and Kerry. Next was the Shannon farmhouse, the first house to be reconstructed in the Folk Park. It originally stood on what is now the main runway of the Shannon airport. We looked into the “Bothan Scoir,” a one-room house of a poor landless laborer who would have worked for a local landlord. Many of these houses and their occupants were lost during the potato famine. The Golden Vale farmhouse was a replica rather than a house moved to the park. This farm would have been about 100 acres with 20 cows, a half-dozen hogs, two horses, a donkey, and many chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigeons. There was quite a contrast between this house and the home of the poor landless laborer.

After leaving the castle and folk park, Deidre had advised us to drive as far as the Kinvarra exit on the motorway, a divided highway, and then approach Gregan’s Castle Hotel near Ballyvaughan from the north, avoiding the dreaded Corkscrew Hill. We would later spend plenty of time on Corkscrew Hill, but with Martina as a driver. Deirdre’s advice was sound, and we arrived at Gregan’s without incident. At the hotel we received a free upgrade to a two-room suite, with a very large bedroom and bathroom and a separate sitting room. Both the bedroom and the sitting room overlooked the Burren, a rocky, glaciated landscape known for its diversity of flora.

We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant beginning at 6:00 p.m. The preparation and presentation of food in the restaurant is amazing; several restaurant awards were posted in the hotel lobby. Dinner started with some snacks, chick liver pate, crispy oysters and smoked salmon with lemon foam on top. The first course was mackerel tartare served in a scallop shell, followed by wild rabbit for me – the best rabbit I have ever had – and crab wrapped in cucumber for Abby. For the main course, I had roast suckling pig while Abby had free-range veal. The food was amazingly good, possibly the best we have ever had.

Dessert was brought to us in front of the Spain-Portugal world cup soccer game, the first half of which we watched with an English couple in the television lounge area associated with our rooms. Abby had a delicious assortment of cheeses, while I had a sweet chocolate-raspberry pave and with a dollop of sorbet. Even more amazingly, Ronaldo, scored a hat trick that left the game with Spain all tied up at 3-3. Our day was almost as good as Ronaldo’s.

Thursday, June 14, 2018. The Dingle Peninsula.

Deidre collected us at 9:30 a.m. and we set off for the Dingle Peninsula. We drove past Minard Castle, ancestral home to the Fitzgerald family. This castle has not been restored and is not accessible to the public. We stopped at Inch Strand (or Beach) to pick up objects to exchange in our renewal of vows. Because we are approaching our 40^th wedding anniversary, Deidre asked us if we wanted to renew our vows at an Ogham Stone in a Kil Macader churchyard, which is a traditional place for doing so. We replied in the affirmative.

We stopped at the Fahan Beehive Huts, which are not in Fodor’s, but which Deidre said were the best beehive huts on the peninsula. They were originally built in 2500 B.C. and included a capstone that could be removed to allow smoke to exit. The huts are corbeled with stones that gradually progress inward, creating a dry interior without the use of mortar. Outside the huts, Deidre picked up a lamb, which Abby petted.

We stopped for view of the Blasket Islands, just off the tip of the Dingle Peninsula. These islands were inhabited until 1953, when a boy died of a treatable disease because the weather was too bad for him to be evacuated to a hospital. After that the government forbade the habitation of the islands. Everyone had to move to the mainland, where medical assistance would be more readily available.

Deidre drove us to Clogher Beach, where we followed a tour bus that was backing down the one-lane road to the beach’s parking area. We hopped out and walked down a steep ramp to a beach that had big wind and big waves rolling in. “No swimming” signs were posted because of the steepness at which the shore recedes from the beach.

We then went Kil Macader church, which dates from the 12^th century, and has an Ogham Stone in the graveyard, which is used for renewing wedding vows. Through a hole in the top of the Ogham stone, we touched our thumbs with our ring fingers showing our wedding rings. We exchanged wedding vows and exchanged tokens of our appreciation for each other. Abby gave me a cockle shell that she found on the Inch beach and I gave her a red sandstone rock, red being the color of love or, as Deirdre put it, passion.

We stopped in Anascaul at the South Pole Inn, a pub founded by Tom Crean, who was second in command to Ernest Shackleton during his voyage to the Antarctic in 1914-1917. Mr. Crean enlisted in the British Navy at the age of 15, but had to lie about his age since the minimum enlistment age was 16. He joined Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition on the Endurance, which became trapped and then crushed in pack ice. The crew escaped to the uninhabited Elephant Island, and a boat was sent 800 miles to a whaling station on South Georgia Island, from which Shackleton mounted a rescue of the men stranded on Elephant Island. Shackleton returned his entire crew with no lives lost. Tom Crean retired to his home town of Anascaul to build and operate a pub called the South Pole Inn. I had a glass of Expedition Ale in honor of Mr. Crean.

On the way back to Killarney, our last stop was at Aghadoe Heights, where there is a beautiful overlook of Killarney and Lough Leane. Someone with an American accent tinged with Irish took a photo of the three of us overlooking the lake. Deidre was careful to show us how to get out of town toward our next destination, Ballyvaughan. She was such a kind and thoughtful guide that the three of us exchanged hugs and fond goodbyes when she dropped us off at the Killarney Royal Hotel.

Our hotel package entitled us to a lesson in how to pour a pint of Guinness in the hotel bar. The bartender declared that I was a natural, and clearly had previous experience (I had not). Abby, not being a Guinness drinker, was allowed to pour herself an Bulmer’s cider instead. She also proved to be quite adept. We watched the second half of the Russia v. Saudi Arabia world cup soccer game while we sipped our drinks. Russia won 5-0.

We stopped by the Shire, the only pub in Ireland that is themed with Lord of the Rings. I had a Gandalf Ale while Abby drank a local whisky. We walked two blocks to the Porterhouse pub for a supper of fish and chips (me) and beef fajitas (Abby). We retired happily to our hotel after a satisfying day on the Dingle Peninsula.