"Sweet Swan of Avon:" Rediscovering Stratford-upon-Avon

After our class trip to Paris was cancelled, I wasn't quite sure what to do with my Thanksgiving break. At first, I toyed with simply staying in Bologna for the weekend, hanging out with my classmates and spending my weekend traveling on day trips to cities in Italy - maybe even making it to Castel del Monte, my great-great-great grandfather's home town. But I realized that I probably wouldn't actually do any of those trips, and I would most likely just stay in my dorm for the entirety of the break - sometimes, I'm just too lazy to actually do anything.

My fears of another attack like the one in Paris also crippled my planning - the US State Department published warnings about Milan and Rome, telling Americans not to go to major sites in either city. And I was talking with my dad while trying to plan what I would do, and mentioned that I was afraid that I would wake up one day and be posting a comment that said, "I can't believe that saw the Duomo in Milan/St. Peter's Basilica/the Colosseum and now it's gone. So heartbreaking." to my Instagram, Facebook, tumblr, and even to this blog. My fears of each trip being my last started to get to me.

Finally, my mom called me and told me that she didn't really care where I went, as long as I went somewhere that wasn't Bologna. And she suggested Dublin. So that started my planning.

Dublin wasn't on my list of places to go, but the UK was - I've been to London before, but I went four years ago, as part of a school trip the summer before my senior year of high school. I've wanted to go back to that part of the world ever since I left.

My plans for Dublin were smashed as soon as I saw just how expensive the hotels were - and that didn't even start on the museums, meals, and flight costs.

So I thought I'd just give up.

And then I remembered my favorite part of my trip to England.

On my previous visit, we had spent a day in Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare, touring his birthplace and visiting the home of his wife, Anne Hathaway. It was probably my favorite part of our trip - I think that moment, and our tour of the Globe Theatre, cemented my obsession with Shakespeare and his works.

After looking up how to get to Stratford - it's small enough that I couldn't fly directly there, but needed to take a plane to Birmingham and two trains to the center of town - I booked a bed and breakfast, and then began planning the dream trip of a lifetime.

And I was planning to do it alone.

On Thanksgiving, while the rest of my classmates were planning an epic Friendsgiving feast and playing football in the quad at Camplus, I was waiting at the airport in Bologna to print off my boarding passes and board my flight to Munich. Once in Munich, I had to pass through German customs (which earned me my first real stamp on my passport since I went through customs in Amsterdam on arriving in Europe in September), and then passed four and a half hours wandering the gates, eating lunch, and charging my phone. I then flew from Munich to Birmingham, England. When I landed in Birmingham, it was only 4:45 local time, but it was already completely black outside - something that I hadn't been prepared for.

After pulling some pounds from a machine (gotta love different monetary systems), I went to the train station via a quick inter station train between the airport and the train station. After talking to the gentleman at the counter, I bought tickets for my journey to and from Stratford, and then caught my first train, which took me to Leamington Spa. There, I bought a sandwich and some tea, and waited for my second train to come into the station.

Leamington Spa Station

Once I arrived in Stratford, I realized that the way that I had planned on walking to the station was blocked off by construction, so I looked for a taxi stand in order to get to my B&B. However, I saw no posted signs for a taxi stand, and so I had to look for a local to ask for directions. I stopped a woman who was walking up to catch a train, and asked if she knew of a taxi stand nearby. She stopped, thought about it, and handed me a card with a taxi company's phone number on it, and told me that she was going to go buy her ticket, but she would wait for me to get a cab before she left. It took calling four taxi companies, but I finally wound up with a cab, and only a 10-15 minute wait. The woman - whose name I never caught, but to whom I am eternally grateful - had to catch her train, but left me the card for future emergencies.

After my cab picked me up from the train station, I walked into the B&B and was taken up to my room. I had booked a single with private bath, and so was expecting a twin bed and a tiny little bathroom. What I got was a large, double bed, with a small but clean bathroom, and a beautiful view of Stratford. After a quick chat with my family to wish them a happy Thanksgiving and tell them that I had made it safe, I curled up in bed and went to sleep.

My first day in Stratford I spent visiting properties owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. My day started at 8 AM with an English breakfast at my B&B, and I left at 9:15 to walk from the B&B to the town center. The walk was much shorter than I had expected - and my first visit, to the Shakespeare Birthplace, wasn't until 10 - so I wandered down one of the streets. As I walked, I found a bookstore, Waterstones, and popped in for a bit, to warm up and kill some time.

Waterstones is basically the British version of Barnes and Noble. However, they carry literally every special edition of every classic novel ever written - and in Stratford, they have an entire shelving unit devoted to William Shakespeare. As soon as I walked in, I spotted a pile of beautifully bound classics - one of which was Pride and Prejudice. The sign on the table said that the books were limited edition releases by Penguin for this Christmas, and only available at Waterstones.

Needless to say, I picked up a copy. What better way to memorialize a trip to the UK than Jane Austen?

I wandered upstairs and looked through the history and biography sections (sadly lacking in American history - and it was quite strange to see British history merely labeled "history"), and spent some time looking at different editions of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and individual plays. On my way back down, I spotted a tote bag that said "I Love Darcy" and snagged it - if I was going to buy something Austen, I might as well go all the way.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Austenite in search of Pride and Prejudice will always find more Pride and Prejudice things.

As I was checking out, my cashier remarked that she didn't even know that they carried that tote bag, and seeing it made her really want one. She also said that the Penguin editions were just absolutely gorgeous, and she had one also. She then pointed out the correct direction to the Birthplace, and I headed towards my first Shakespeare stop for the day.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust runs seven buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon. Five are within the town itself - the Birthplace, Harvard House, Hall's Croft,  and New Place and Nash's House. The others are outside of town - Anne Hathaway's Cottage, a 30 minute walk outside of town, and Mary Arden's Farm, two train stops away. New Place and Nash's House are being restored currently, and will reopen in the spring, and so Harvard House, which is not normally open, was open during my visit.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

"And there is pansies, that's for thoughts." - Hamlet IV.v

The Shakespeare Birthplace

After purchasing my entrance ticket, I wandered through the brief Shakespeare exhibit the Birthplace Trust had out, and then entered the Birthplace - one of the first people to do so for the day. The rooms were exactly how I had remembered them from my visit four years before - but this time, I was able to spend as much time as I wanted to wandering and listening to the speakers. I learned about the obsession with long fingers on gloves in Tudor England, and the reason why boys were dressed in dresses until they turned 8. I also was told that new scholarship is suggesting that Shakespeare visited London on business for his father's glove making shop during his lost years, and wound up as a patron of a group of players before he joined the Lord Chamberlain's men. Finally, I walked into the last room of the house, and learned what happened after John Shakespeare, William's father, died.

Constantly leaving their mark on history - visitors used to carve their names into the windows (Henry Irving is the signature on the top left of the center pane)

Once his father died, Shakespeare no longer needed his childhood home - he had already purchased New Place, the nicest house in the town, for his own family. Instead, Shakespeare expanded the house, and turned most of it into a tavern. The tavern remained open until the 1700s, when its last owner died, and no one purchased the tavern. The building was closed, and lay in disarray until rumors came about that P.T. Barnum wanted to buy the house, ship it to the States, and make it part of his circus. Charles Dickens was having none of that, and so he put on productions of Shakespeare's plays in London, with the money going to the purchase of the Birthplace and the foundation of the organization today known as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Inside the room were the in-house players, who offered to perform bits of Shakespeare's plays by request. One woman requested Antony and Cleopatra, and so I was privy to a performance of part of Cleopatra's death soliloquy:

"Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have

Immortal longings in me: now no more

The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:

Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear

Antony call; I see him rouse himself

To praise my noble act; I hear him mock

The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men

To excuse after their wrath: husband, I come:

Now to that name my courage prove my title!

I am fire and air; my other elements 

I give to baser life. So; have you done?

Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.

Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell."

 - Antony and Cleopatra, V.ii

After which point, Iras suddenly drops dead (as our actress noted), and the scene gets much harder to perform. I then requested Richard II, and got to see and hear part of my favorite Shakespeare soliloquy (which she admitted that she had only just started learning, but she would try, since I asked):

"No matter where; of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humor'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!"
 - Richard II III.ii

At which point she said that she couldn't remember any more (it is rather a long soliloquy, and not an easy one) - but for a moment, I got to hear a speech that most people don't perform in the States, and done well.

It was a highlight of my day.

From the Birthplace (and its gift shop - the most wonderful shop in the world), I went into Starbucks and then to Harvard House. The house belonged to Thomas Rogers, a successful member of Stratford society. His daughter Katherine married Robert Harvard; their son John moved to Massachusetts with his wife and became the namesake and founder of Harvard University. The house belongs to Harvard University, and is cared for by the Birthplace Trust. 

Harvard House

So many tiny stairs, so little time for me to trip and bump my head

It is a small house, and not designed for tall people to walk through - I managed to bump my head twice on the way down and trip over my feet on the stairs. But the family was definitely wealthy - they had painted their walls and had stained glass in one of their windows. There were also Lancaster roses around the house, which I found particularly interesting, given the location of the town near Warwick - a stronghold of Yorkist support during the Wars of the Roses. 

Original painted walls in Harvard House

Stained glass windows

Harvard House's staff were especially excited to see an American tourist, and so we talked about Thanksgiving (which they had hosted the day before) and where I was from. I then walked on to Hall's Croft.

Hall's Croft was the home of Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susannah, and her husband, Dr. John Hall. Susannah was the only one of Shakespeare's children to have a child who married - her first son-in-law, Thomas Nash, is buried in the family crypt in Trinity Church. The house is incredibly spacious, with high ceilings and large fireplaces. The Halls also had a large garden behind their house. Dr. Hall practiced medicine from their home, and earned enough money to purchase several paintings - both portraits and still lifes (although whether these images are from the Halls' time in the house or the time of those after, I'm not quite sure). Also on display was an exhibit on Shakespeare, Stratford, and the First World War - this is the second year of the 100th anniversary of World War I, and so the exhibit was appropriate.

Dining room in Hall's Croft

Dr. Hall's medical practice 

A view to the garden outside

After a full morning, I stopped for cream tea at the cafe downstairs, and had a pot of English Breakfast and a scone with clotted cream and strawberry preserves. It was absolutely delicious, and just what I needed to pick me up before I stopped for my last planned visit of the day - Trinity Church, the site of Shakespeare's grave.

Lesson learned: I'm not allowed near clotted cream...

I had seen the gravesite before, of course - but I had been sped past it last time, in order to get back on the bus. This time, I walked in, taking copious pictures of everything. Even after two minutes of pictures, I still managed to have enough time to stand alone in front of Shakespeare's tomb and talk to it.

Trinity Church 

The entrance to Shakespeare's grave 

"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be he that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

A memorial to Shakespeare designed by his friends and family in 1623

The Shakespeare family graves

It might seem a little weird, talking to the grave of a long-dead poet. But without this poet, I've realized, a lot of what I love - the words that I enjoy working with so much, the books I love to read - they wouldn't be here. And so I stood there quoting from Shakespeare's plays to him for five minutes, and almost started on Ben Jonson's poem, before realizing that bidding a 400 year old corpse to rise was probably a bad idea. Instead, standing there, I began to tear up, and, softly, I murmured, "Thank you. For everything."

As I was walking out (and trying not to cry - it was kind of a big deal), I asked the woman at the ticket desk about the history of the church. We wound up having a chat for 10 minutes about the church's history, the formation of Anglicanism and Cromwell's effect on churches in England, and another church in Stratford that she suggested I visit (since I'm studying history and English). I really enjoyed her chat - and I'm also grateful that she didn't judge me in the least for asking questions about her history, her church, or area. Thank you.

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
 Must give us pause." - Hamlet III.i

I wound up walking back towards that second church, the Guild Chapel, but it was locked - it contains partial frescoes preserved from Cromwell's attacks on churches. Trying to kill some more time - I was getting tired, but it was only 3:15, and I had at least another 45 minutes before the sun went down - I walked into a local bookstore called the Chaucer's Head. There, of all places, I found a book on Robespierre and the French Revolution (which I believe is out of print in the States). After purchasing the book, I walked to a Costa Coffee, bought a sandwich and a tea, and walked to my B&B for the evening.

The next day (after another English breakfast), I walked to the Royal Shakespeare Company, on the banks of the River Avon. I've been dreaming about seeing a show at the RSC since I was in high school - and this trip, I booked a ticket to their matinee performance of Wendy and Peter Pan. I also had booked a backstage tour of the theatre (since I've seen the backstage areas of the National Theatre in London, I felt it was only right that I should do a similar tour here, as well). 

The River Avon

I got to the theatre early (surprise surprise), and so I walked along the banks of the Avon, taking pictures of the swans and the RSC. Once I picked up my tickets, I waited for my tour inside the area just outside of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - and was greeted by a large production photo of David Tennant (my favorite Doctor from Doctor Who) in his production of Richard II. 

Immediately, I felt at home.

They wouldn't let me take pictures inside for copyright reasons, so I took a photo of my ticket instead

My tour group was very small - just myself, the tour guide, and a married couple who had come because they had seen lots of shows from the RSC but never been on a tour before. I got to see the quick change areas (apparently, to keep the audience from hearing them, all quick change costumes are done with magnets - something I'd never considered before) and the back of the stage, where they were keeping the Jolly Roger for the matinee production. The original stage of the RSC Theatre was built in 1932 to house 1,000 people - but in the 1950s, it was expanded to hold 1,500. The stage was a traditional proscenium arch, behind which all the action took place. The new stage, built in 2007 and opened in 2010, is a thrust stage, maintaining the proscenium arch, but putting the action before it. Each production has a different stage, to accommodate the sets and entrances from underneath. It can now seat 1,045 people. 

From the RSC Theatre, we walked upstairs to the dressing rooms and the laundry, where costumes are kept. Every piece of fabric that touches the skin must be washed after each show - that means after the matinee and before the evening show, each actor's costume is cleaned. 

From there, we entered the Swan Theatre. The Swan is on the site of the original theatre built by Charles Flower, a brewer in Stratford who was determined to give Shakespeare a memorial in his hometown. The original building burned down to the ground in the 1920s in a mysterious fire that was spotted by locals at the Black Swan/Dirty Duck Pub down the road (which has delicious food - it's the place I ate at when I was in town four years before). The site was refurbished as a practice space, but eventually the company needed a second stage. The money for the project came from a Kansas billionaire, and the theatre opened in the 1980s. The exterior of the stage is currently undergoing restoration.

From the Swan, we walked into the light and sound booth, and then to the Rooftop restaurant, where we saw just how far back the furthest row of seats were from the stage in the original RSC Theatre - 25 meters from center stage to the back row.

"...can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?" - Henry V I.i

After the end of my tour, I walked into the gift shop to pick up gifts and souvenirs, and then to the cafe to grab a quick bite before my show began. 

Wendy and Peter Pan was amazing - the acting was spectacular, the sets were gorgeous, and I desperately want to wear the costumes. If anything, I wish that the show had been done with actual child actors, instead of actors my age playing Wendy and Peter and the Darling children. But the best part of the show was by far the Crocodile. He came out in a long, green leather trench coat, a Doctor Who scarf, and a top hat, and then slid into a split and crawled across the stage, moving his hips completely around and pulling himself forward. The terrifying cat's eye contact lenses and the bone-cracking noises playing as he moved didn't help to make him less scary. Although he had no lines, he perfectly embodied his character, and I was enthralled whenever he was on stage.

From the show, I left to stop by Starbucks for a hot chocolate and a sandwich, and picked up a last minute book on Shakespeare from Waterstones, before heading back to my B&B in the rain. Once I dried off, I packed up for the next morning, checked into my flights, and looked at the train schedule.

After catching my trains and my flight, I landed in Frankfurt and had another four and a half hour layover, spent much the same way. Once I got back to Bologna and my dorm, I was incredibly grateful to be back - and also sad that I couldn't stay longer.

I've never been somewhere where everyone was so friendly and ready to help me. All of the people that I stopped and talked to were incredibly cheerful and nice, and were willing to give me advice (and I was even mistaken for Canadian, which was a welcome surprise). I could definitely see myself living in a place like Stratford - maybe even in Stratford, if I had the chance.

Most importantly, I had the chance to relax before exams and get away from daily life. 

So thank you, Stratford, for one of the best experiences of my life. I can't wait to come back.

"Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise!"
 - Ben Jonson, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare"