Warwick Castle

Over the weekend, OSAP had a day trip to Warwick castle,

which is believed by many to be one of the finest castles in all of Europe.

The castle is very large and we were able to climb

to the very top – great view of the city.

Inside part of the castle were all kinds of medieval real life scenes and to be quite honest, sometimes it was hard to tell what was a wax-model and what (or shall I say who) was real!

Me, Kiran, Andrea, Becca, and Ashley

Another part of the castle was all fancied up for a “royal weekend.” It had rooms throughout history (mostly 19th century) and I was able to talk with one woman who told stories about the time period and all the scandals of the upper class during the Victorian era. For example, turns out a woman’s hunting is never done. Upper-class women would frequently spend their time going to London to be “in society” looking for a man. After one was married, she would still always be on the lookout for a very very rich lover. Shocking.

The gardens were nice but being somewhere between fall and winter, there wasn’t much color. You could tell that in the summer it would be beautiful!
Part of the castle was still all dressed up from Halloween.
While walking through this haunted area, there were tons of random scary stands. I really liked one that had three stocks, two occupied with skeletons, and a third that was empty with a sign over it which read, “Vacancy Apply Here.” I thought the creepy soldier leaning on the stalks was just another wax-person so I got up really close to get a picture. Walked right into that one.

After he gave me a good fright, he then offered to have a picture taken…

Anne Boleyn style.
Went down into the dungeon which sounds cool but once I got down there I got really depressed. It definitely was no museum – there were still “tools” down there that were used to torture prisoners. It was so sad to think that people were really tortured in the room I was standing in, and left for dead.

Me and Vanessa

There were tons of little “shows” for our entertainment. I saw a falcon show, a guest put on trial for execution (the ax was very real – split a pumpkin without even trying), and a sword fight between two men (using real medieval swords that occasionally let off sparks during the fight!).

Friends and I went into the city for lunch and to walk around. Stopped in at a little baguette shop and the owner was very friendly. Upon finding out I’m a big Jane Austen fan, she recommended a book for me to read called North & South which takes place in the Victorian era but is very much like P&P. She also told me about the place in the city where some of the filming was done for the A&E/BBC version of P&P.

Colin Firth was here!

Just down the way from this was the church were J.R.R. Tolkein was married. The architecture inside the church reminds me of the city of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings. The lady from the shop also told us that the 30 miles of land surrounding the city of Warwick was Tolkeins inspiration when he was creating the different lands in LotR.

Very good times in Warwick. : - )