August 11, 2019

This morning I got up VERY early to get ready for a bus tour for the day! Our first stop was Stratford upon Avon, which is Shakespeare’s birthplace, and also where he is buried. Interestingly, he is buried without his head (someone probably stole it at some point). I spent most of our time at this stop shopping, because that’s most of what they have to do. It’s kind of a cross between a cute, quaint, old town and a more modern city with lots of department and chain stores. I found a new outfit to wear (which was important because it was verywindy and my dress was short) and then grabbed some fast food and walked around. I did see where Shakespeare was born, but not his grave. Oh well! Our second stop was Bybury, which is a small town in the Cotswalds and it is ADORABLE! This was pretty much the highlight of the tour for me, because I really wanted to get a glimpse of the Cotswalds and pretend I was in The Holiday for a second. Unfortunately, it did start pouring rain as soon as we got off the bus, but I didn’t let this stop me. After walking around for about half an hour, we got on the bus and made our last stop in Oxford. Oxford was a pretty standard college town, except that the colleges are much older than in the U.S. and there are 38 of them all housed in the city. I wasn’t super excited about this stop, but we got a super nice walking tour from our guide and he did point out more than a few places where Harry Potter was filmed! Mostly I loved this tour, I just wish we had spent more time in Bybury because as soon as we were leaving it started to get sunny.