We left York early the next morning to begin our journey back down south. After a couple of comfort stops we arrived in Warwickshire. Side note – the motorway services in the UK are brilliant. They have toilets, cafes, shops and are frequently dotted along the motorways. It’s basically everything you could hope for in a comfort stop.
Now I know I say this a lot, but Warwickshire is one of my favourite counties. Steeped in history from medieval to Shakespeare, it’s also a very important part of my personal history. It happens to be the place where I went to university, met Rich and got married. So it has a lot of significance for us. As if we hadn’t had enough nostalgia in Welwyn Garden City, we were in for a whole lot more.
Our first stop was a drive through the University of Warwick campus. Rich and I both went to university here, and for me especially it holds such fond memories of wonderful times. The place itself has changed a lot. The students union is less a sticky-floored nightclub and more a daytime space for students to hang out. I’m not sure it’s an improvement to be honest – my best memories were made on Monday nights at Top Banana dancing the night away to extremely cheesy music. I was pleased to see my old Halls of Residence – Rootes and Tocil – hadn’t changed at all. I am very grateful and thankful for my years at Warwick and it was so good to see it again.

It happened to be freshers week while we were there and the whole campus was abuzz with students. These fresh new students with only a few days under their belt have no idea how lucky they are to have the whole experience ahead of them. I am endlessly grateful for my university experience and completely envious of those students who have it all to come.
Anyway, moving on. I had a great time at university, you get it.
For the next stop on our nostalgia tour of Warwickshire we went to Ettington Park, which is a beautiful country house hotel where we got married 13 years ago. I was pleased to see it had changed very little, and there was even a wedding on while we were there. Not wanting to intrude on the wedding, we pottered around the grounds, took a few photos, saw a few squirrels and jumped in some muddy puddles.

I had wanted to see something Shakespeare related while in Warwickshire – Stratford-upon-Avon being the birthplace of Shakespeare and one of my favourite towns. We didn’t have time to go into Stratford itself, so we stopped at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage for a quick look. Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife and her cottage is just outside the town centre. But by this stage it was pouring with rain, and it had been a long and emotional day and I didn’t have the energy to take the kids around a 15th century cottage making sure they didn’t break something valuable. So we gave it a miss. I had a look around the outside, it really is a lovely little cottage and on another day we would have spent more time here, but today wasn’t the day.

Our final stop for the day was Warwick Castle, where we’d be spending the next few days. We knew this would be a fun stay for the kids, and it really didn’t disappoint. We stayed in the Knights Village hotel, which is on the grounds of the castle about a 15 minute walk to the castle itself. The hotel is very strongly medieval-themed in the main areas and the rooms, with a knight on a horse in the lobby, crests and swords on the walls and even a sword you can try and pull out of a stone.

The hotel has a buffet dinner which we went to on the first night. We had low expectations but it was actually great. The food selections were decent – a salad bar, a roast dinner carvery and a good selection of kid-friendly options like sausages, beans, pasta, and finishing up with a few dessert options. I don’t think you’d want to do the buffet two nights in a row, but for one night it was perfect. After dinner they have a performance by two knights who give all the kids a sword fighting lesson and then had a sword fight themselves. It was cheesy but fun and even Theo remained totally engaged throughout, concentrating hard on his sword fighting skills.

The next day was our full day in Warwick Castle. After a good buffet breakfast in the hotel we made our way to the main castle. If you stay in the hotel you get a one-day entrance pass to the castle, and the castle is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.
Warwick Castle is an excellent day out for all the family, with so much to do. For the kids specifically there’s a Zog playground and a Horrible Histories maze. For everyone else it’s an excellently preserved 1000-year old castle with ramparts, state rooms, dungeons and huge amounts of history presented in a really interactive way. The state rooms in particular were the best I’ve seen in any castle (and I’ve visited a lot) – with figurines of the inhabitants set up in each room, including Henry VIII and his six wives, to help the rooms come to life.

The ramparts, on the other hand, were hard work. They involve climbing the towers to the top defensive walls. If you’re in any way nervous of very narrow windy castle tower stairs you should avoid this. It’s a one way system, and there’s no turning back once you’ve started. I managed to get about half way and had to give up – climbing up and down these stairs was giving my legs the wobbles. I am reliably informed that the view from the top of the ramparts over the castle is worth it, and the kids will have fun.

Overall we were really impressed with Warwick Castle. Yes it’s very heavily commercialised, but I feel that they really do a good job bringing history to life. The kids were learning so much and not even realising it. It’s a fun place to visit, very well run and considering everything you get included in the ticket it’s pretty good value. There were a few things that were closed for the season when we visited such as the Princess Tower and the jousting, but on the flip side it was much quieter than it would be in the summer. I would recommend staying onsite as well, this is really a treat for the kids.
For dinner that night we ventured into Leamington Spa – a beautiful regency town and yet another nostalgia trip. Leamington was very closely associated with the University of Warwick, with most students living there in their second years, including Rich. We also had our first date in Five Rivers Indian restaurant, which I was very pleased to see was still there. To top it all off, as we were walking to dinner we saw a deer in one of the city parks. What a treat!

And so our nostalgia trip to Warwickshire had come to an end. In fact our whole trip was coming to an end. We only had a few more nights to go…
Coming up…down into Devon.
Previously…the stunning city of York.
What’s up, I log on to your blog daily. Your story-telling style is witty, keep it
up!
Thank you so much!