Stratford-upon-Avon is located in the county of Warwickshire.
It's a small town, you only need a few hours to visit it, so it's perfect for a one-day trip out of town or at most two.
From London there are three ways to reach it: bus, train and car.
In the end, we spent the three hours and even exceeded them, not so much for the distance between the two cities as for the traffic encountered in London.
Once you reach the town and you cross the river you come across Cox's Yard, a fairly rustic pub-restaurant with a terrace overlooking the river.
We were hungry so we couldn't help but stopping for a nice beer and fish&chips!
The Tourist Information Center is nearby and there we got a map to know what to see in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The map recommended a nice walk along the river in the Recreation Ground, the ‘Stratford Avon circular walk’, which leads to the church where Shakespeare is buried and then returns to the centre to see the house where the poet was born and the cottage where he lived with his wife, Anne Hathaway.
The Stratford Avon circular walk was really pleasant and there are many trees along it.
The birthplace of Shakespeare is a house on the main road which you can visit and it’s extremely interesting in my opinion as it has original pieces and it explains through panels the early life of the great playwright.
Just a curiosity: here I learned that the English wish for a good night ‘Sleep tight!’ comes from the fact that back in those times people used to sleep on roped beds which needed to be very tight to allow a good night of sleep.
Across the river we find the Holy Trinity Church, the church where William Shakespeare was baptized and where he is buried.
William and his wife are buried in the choir area, along with other members of their family.
To enter the area where the poet's tomb is, a donation is required.
Here are also copies of the baptismal register and the death certificate.
Leaving the Holy Trinity Church, continuing along the river towards the city center we find the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a theater home of the homonym theater company.
In town there is Sheep Street, a street full of Tudor style buildings.
There are boutiques, shops, restaurants and cafés, all built respecting this style (though many not authentic in my opinion) and leaving unchanged the beauty of the buildings that contain them.
On Sheep Street there is also a private museum entirely dedicated to the era in which Shakespeare lived which explains how life was during the Tudor Era.
Tudor houses have sloping roofs covered with clay or stone tiles, often also with thatch therefore called thatched roof houses.
The upper floors in such houses were built wider than the ground floors, thus also making them protruding to allow more space on the lower floors, for the street.
The windows of Tudor houses are tall, narrow and with wooden frames and I love this style because I think it represents true “English style” as people imagine it abroad.
Stratford-upon-Avon is a village which has a lot to offer and I would love to live in the English countryside one day. These villages have the true English essence.
Shakespeare’s birthplace - “Sleep tight”
Tudor Style homes and shops in town
