Wednesday 15th April 2009

I awoke around 4.45am – having remembered that I hadn’t charged the battery for the camera. Of course prowling around to do that I woke Deb so she made us a cup of tea, while I put the camera battery on charge and wrote up yesterday’s blog. If we don’t immediately write up what happens, it quickly gets forgotten.
This morning we are going to Warwick Castle for a private tour.
We went down and had breakfast with the group, and then checked out of the hotel and were loaded onto the bus around 8.15am. It was raining quite heavily, and while waiting for the bus to leave there were a couple of flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder and the rain came pouring down.
It didn’t look like being a great day for visiting Warwick Castle which was just a 15 minute drive away.
Eventually we set off, and as we drove so the rain dissipated, and we were left with grey skies, and a cold windy day.
When we arrived at the Castle, we were the first group of the day, and had a private tour organised for us. We walked down to the entrance and were amazed as we walked towards the castle. It was just like the castles seen in books.
Lots of photos, and then in the castle for the guided tour. It was amazing, the castle had been sold a number of times, and was now run by a conglomerate known as Merlin Entertainments – which has become second to Disney Entertainment Parks in size.
The rooms had been set up with original furniture and in themes related to the use of the Castle at various periods. There were many figures provided by Madam Tussaud’s to create the real looking scenes.
We took many photos!
The visit left us with about an hour to wander around on our own, and that was also very interesting – but the tourists had begun to arrive, and soon there were crowds of people milling around.
After we were loaded back on the bus, we headed off on the M1 Motorway towards York. Being on a motorway didn’t really lend itself to much scenery, and many of us nodded off.
We stopped for a short break for lunch and a stretch at a roadside stop on the Motorway around 1.00pm, then continued on until we reached York and our hotel – the Novotel, York.
The Hotel was very busy, and we were asked to just take our hand luggage up to our room, and then meet Ian in the foyer for our walk around York, the Shambles and York Minster Cathedral.
We were then left to our own devices to continue to explore the town, and return to the Hotel.
The Cathedral was incredible, but there was major restoration being carried out on one end. They also charged quite a lot to do a tour, but we decided to just have a look around and take some photos, then explore the town.
We wandered around, found some souveniers, and then decided to post them home as we are finding it difficult to carry much extra stuff home with us. We found a post office, and posted the parcel home and then went on the explore the town.
We soon found ourselves lost, and had to ask a couple of people to give us directions back to the hotel. We eventually found the hotel after walking around for a while.
So it was have a little rest before going down for dinner, then back to the room for the night. No swim in the pool for us – there were too many children in the pool.