Day 13, Wednesday, September 13th: The Butterfly Whisperer
We weren't sure of our plans for today, although the weather is now sunny and warmish. We have done most of the hikes from Broadway so one option would be to take a bus to another village and walk back. Lana had a recommendation from her friend Cheryl to head to Stratford-upon-Avon and enjoy all that is William Shakespeare. Sounds like a great idea given we didn't really have a "rest day" yesterday as planned and we can do some walking as well in this town located northeast of Broadway. It is about 20 kms distance and we can catch the #1 Bus at Lifford Hall at 9:51 for a one hour trip.
We make it to the stop early as neither of us want to be late. It costs 4 Pounds for the two of us! Wow, cheap public transport and no senior discount. Pretty much everyone on the bus is a senior citizen though. Prior to leaving for the bus, we have our breakfast and I do some quick research on Stratford-upon-Avon sights to see so at least we can prioritize once we arrive. The weather on our trip is fairly sunny although a little chilly compared to the heat wave when we arrived a few days previous.
This route takes us to a number of small villages between Broadway and Stratford-upon-Avon. First stop was Chipping Campden that we hiked to a couple of days ago. There is a sign near the village "The Pudding Club" which according to the internet is to preserve the great British pudding. I think that is a great and noble cause! We pick up and drop off at Mickleton, Upper Quinton, Lower Quinton and Meon Vale. We notice pretty quickly that the homes and buildings in this area are now red brick and not the yellow stone we usually see in the Cotswolds. Oh yeah, there is a "Fish & Chips and Chinese Meals" restaurant in town.
Randy the Butterfly Whisperer.
On the way to the Butterfly Farm we come across a statue of William Shakespeare himself! He was born back in 1564 and has to be the most famous playwright of all time. We love his plays and his use of the english language is unparalleled. In the statue he is watching over his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Pretty intricate sculptures around the four corners of this massive statue.
We have seen these narrow river barges in the movies, but never in person. There were a number of these on the canal. They look like people are living in them.
The thrill for me for the day was visiting the Butterfly Farm.
Proof of my senior discount--saved .50 GBP!
OK, for some reason these butterflies loved to spend time with me, land on my head, nose, face, pants, hands, arms, legs etc. This is why I am calling myself the butterfly whisperer. Lana did not have the same luck although that allowed her to take a lot of pictures.
Unless you are really into beautiful pictures of butterflies you might as well skip forward a lot as we have thirty seven (37) consecutive pictures in fact. Each butterfly is so beautiful and they are small and large and in between. Different shapes. They are flitting around, swarming sometimes. It is very warm inside and humid so perfect for the butterflies.
On my pants!
On my arm?
A few moments later, it flew away.
Besides the thousands of butterflies they have insects, fish and other animals. You can see most of them pretty up close.
Leafcutter ants! They have set up 2 large fish tanks connected by this rope and you only notice the ants walking across carrying leaves if you look up--which Lana did.
Check out the size of this grasshopper like insect! It is gigantic!
Another gigantic bug!
This is a chameleon and very long.
I think we spend more than an hour at the Butterfly Farm. Before I forget, all of these tourist places exit into the Gift Shop. Normally, I go wait outside while Lana browses and sometimes buys. On this occasion, I was keen on purchasing a memento which ended up being a magnet of a butterfly.
Lana has some older English currency that merchants will not accept as it is too old. A bank won't do the exchange as we don't "have an account". The Post Office will exchange her notes though.
For some reason they are selling Christmas stuff already and it is mid-September. These are 3 Dimensional XMas cards. Lana buys a couple of cards.
Interior shot as I wanted to show the wooden beams and style. Very low ceilings as people were much shorter back in the 15th Century. I think I might have been a taller guy at my size in that time.
This imposing structure was across the street from the pub. Seems like a mini church?
Of course we are ordering another sparking cider from the tap. This one is a Fuller-Smith-Turner Cider and was delicious. Two glasses with ice please and thanks. We have noticed since reaching England that we are imbibing in a lot of cider. Good news that their ABV are very low. Funny that sometimes we are thinking this might be addictive?
Lana's meal of Pie of the Day--a steak and mushroom pie with chips and steamed veggies!
Randy's meal of Honey Glazed Ham with Chips Eggs and a Salad. Wow, this was a delicious lunch. Frankly, I am a sucker for any dish that has fried eggs with it!
Apparently the number one tourist destination in Stratford-upon-Avon is William Shakespeare's Birthplace. What a surprise! This is our picture of the bard of Avon's birthplace. Pretty nice building and from the 16th Century. We did not go in....
Another angle.
Why would we not go into this exhibit? The cost for entry was more than 20 Pounds each and when you convert that to Canadian $35 it is too much money. While we love his work we are not that keen. There are three sites they try to sell you on. The second site is the New Building which is where he lived (no longer standing as we checked it out from the street) and then Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Quite a walk so we didn't go there.
This is a store devoted to Christmas and it is selling merch right now.
One of the places we wanted to see was the MAD Museum on the main drag. Interactive exhibits of mechanical art and design with buttons, handles, lights and sound effects. Plus, very reasonable entry fee although no senior discount. We loved it here!
Lana got some change from the cashier and played this game. You hold the button while the cobra flashes its eye and then suddenly lunges. She did pretty good without flinching!
Scuba diving art work that moved along with the fishes and tall seaweed.
This work for art, ate his sandwich, looked around and shuffled his feet.
This was Lana's favourite piece--the ball rolls from the upper right hand cover and alternates going left then right. At the small dark rectangle below the upper right gear, the ball literally free falls and hits the small grey cylinder and bounces up into the wire basket that you see. Lana was able to capture the ball mid-air after the bounce!
This work of art is actually a clock based on the number of balls on each level on the left hand side.
See above. Wherever you place your hands the lights light up.
Our bus does not depart until 17:07. We have close to about 90 minutes before departure. We haven't spent much time down on the canal nor the park. Lana is pretty tired as well. Eventually, we find a park bench by the canal and watch the swans, ducks, white geese, Canada Geese and other birds in the water. There are large tour boats, smaller boats, kayaks and other watercraft on the canal. When the full bench becomes available Lana has a good nap resting her head on my lap.
On the canal.
We arrive in Broadway just after 18:00 and a short walk into town. Lana has been craving Bangers & Mash but no luck so far finding it in the pubs. We are both pretty full from our pub lunch earlier. We try to find bangers and mash 'to go' and take home to eat in front of the tv. Three places and no luck! Two of them don't have the dish and the third does not do take-out. What the heck? Are we not in England? No bangers & mash? It's this the national dish?!??!!
We do have a casual dinner at home tonight consisting of a scotch egg and salami/cheese sandwiches chased down with a fantastic Swedish Mango-Raspberry Cider. We are both full. When we got home tonight we immediately started a load of laundry and it took three hours to finish using the Eco time saver. Wow....
Despite no hiking today I managed to exceed 10,000 steps but only 9 floors. For the past seven days an average of 15,000+ steps per day and 23 floors. It was a good relaxing day with lots of fun activities and in no rush. We need to get up early tomorrow to catch the 9:04 bus to Evesham.
Comments
Post a Comment