I found my B&B easily enough and chatted amiably with the proprietors who had been to Santa Barbara in the past and thought it was lovely all the while pressing numerous brochures and maps upon me showing the various routes following in Shakespeare’s footsteps. In case you didn’t know, Stratford is the town in which the infamous William Shakespeare was born, lived and died with a brief interlude in London where we wrote a few plays and sonnets that you may or may not have heard about. Essentially, Stratford is a town who has been cashing in on the Shakespeare fame since the man’s death and probably even before that. Everything has a name claiming its fame and relation to the playwright whether or not it’s genuine. Despite its rather blatant tourist focus, the town has a certain charm to it. I bought a ticket to visit the five “Shakespeare Houses,” three of which are in the town centre and two of which are a short distance out of town. I only made it to three but the ticket is valid for 12 months so you never know I might get my money’s worth later on. I only had time to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace on the day of my arrival. I walked around the small city centre and had dinner at what claimed to be the oldest pub in Stratford, Garrick’s Inn. I spent the rest of the evening dancing around my gigantic room that contained not one, not two but three beds. It was rather exciting having so many options but naturally I went for the biggest one and tired from the days travels, promptly fell asleep.
Sunday started with a filling English breakfast, the kind you can only get at an English B&B, and headed on the footpath out of town to Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Now don’t go thinking I’m a celebrity stalker, I’m not referring to Anne Hathaway of Princess Diaries fame but to Shakespeare’s wife. I think I’m just much more suited and at peace in the country because the moment the people faded away and were replaced by chirping birds and the white tales of rabbits hiding upon my approach I was engulfed in a sense of calm. I was one of the first visitors of the day and enjoyed the period dressed guides who imparted heaps of information about the Hathaway family and the living conditions of the time for their class. I wandered through the woodland walk where I was taken into the confidences of two young boys who pointed out various wildlife to me. I even took a go at the hedge maze that was straightforward but frustratingly time consuming and lost its novelty very quickly. I visited Nash’s House and New Place, the home of Shakespeare’s daughter and doctor husband and the place where Shakespeare’s adult home once stood. In a historically tragic event, one of the succeeding owners of New Place became tiresome of the Shakespeare seeking visitors gawking at his home that he tore the thing down and now all that’s left is the courtyard well and some archways that once adorned the cellar. I spent the rest of the afternoon on a guided walking tour through the town that took me by a lot of things I’d already seen but also introduced about 27 new things about Shakespeare that I didn’t already know. We did make it to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and some of his family members are buried. It’s rather odd standing there and thinking that this English genius is down there…so I snapped a photo and shuffled out of the way so the next person could do the same thing. After the tour I stopped in at the Shakespeare Hotel for a tea and some reading. I spent the remaining daylight hours walking along the river until I got hungry. Had the most disappointing and quickest dinner I’ve ever experienced at a pub/inn I don’t even recall the name of, something with a swan in it. The carvery was nearly finished and there was only one miniscule Yorkshire pudding sitting humbly amongst the roast potatoes. With a mind to snatch it up, I was distracted by the chatty chef who was attempting to befriend me and moved on to the sauces while three middle aged women who I guessed to be of Dutch or Scandinavian origin came to the table. There they made clear that the purpose in eating a carvery was in order to have Yorkshire pudding and snatched up the last one as I silently cursed myself and sat down, defeated, at my small table. Ten minutes later I paid the bill and walked back to the B&B for my last night in Shakespeare-land.
Wales greeted me with a train full of leprechauns on their way back to Ireland. Actually it was a bunch of Ireland football or rugby supporters but they sure looked like a bunch of leprechauns in all their green glory. I took the train to Fishguard harbor, where I would be taking the ferry in two days time, when I realized the harbor is about a mile and a half from the town where I was staying. About 40 minutes later, after several confused looks, crossing the same road seven different times, climbing a far too steep hill and winding my way down a street that seemed to have no end, I arrived at the Manor Town House. Gail, the woman who runs the B&B was very friendly and welcoming but had a way of speaking that left you wondering if there was more coming even when she was finished saying what she had to say, this led to some rather awkward silences or overlapping speech when we would talk as I had no idea whether she was going to continue talking or wait for me to reply. She invited me to join her dog and her on a walk in Newport an hour later and having no other ideas of how to occupy my time, accepted the offer. She showed me two Neolithic Cairns that dotted the countryside on the way to Newport, a few miles north along the coast. By the time we returned to Fishguard it was nearly dark so I walked through the town to get my bearings before heading back to the Royal Oak pub around the corner from where I was staying. I spent the evening reading my book, (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—excellent book that I highly recommend if you haven’t already read it) and writing letters while enjoying dinner and a pint of the local ale, The Reverend James.
Tuesday morning I met the only other patron of the B&B at breakfast, an Australian man called Tony who after chatting for a while offered me a lift to St. David’s where I was planning on doing some walking. He was a lovely chap, visiting his son in London and seeing a bit more of the country, he also has a daughter called Kara and how many of those are there, really? He dropped me off at the tourist info centre in St. David’s where I was given a map and directions from the very Welsh woman at reception. I had two options, a two-hour circle that would bring me back in time to catch the 12:50 bus to Fishguard or a longer circle that would take me around the peninsula with views to Ramsay Island. I’d originally planned to do the shorter walk and then explore the small cathedral town of St David’s but the weather wouldn’t allow me to cut in from the coast after so short of time. I had stripped down to my t-shirt and relished the warmth from the sun for which I had been so long deprived. There were people walking the path but few enough to feel like I owned the very cliffs, sheep, birds and breathtaking views. I had short conversations with the sheep telling them how lucky they were to inhabit such prime pasture real estate, I don’t think they got it, and I even found myself singing loudly like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, how could one not express oneself? After four hours I was starting to feel pretty knackered and the wind picked up so I no longer felt the sun’s warmth and my conversations with the sheep turned more seeking as I tried to follow the footpath back to St. David’s. I finally made it back after back tracking on myself through a farm and being herded with a large herd of sheep and lambs to a new field by some very rambunctious farmers. I took a look at the famous cathedral for which the town is known and the ruined bishops palace that stands by it. As a reward for my successful day of walking I treated myself to a warming cream tea before the bus journey back to Fishguard. That night I returned to the Royal Oak for “Folk @ the Oak,” cute little slogan they’ve got going there. Ran into my Aussie friend at dinner and chatted with him while listening to the good music from a wide variety of instruments. The music was good but there were long gaps in between songs, which was rather annoying, but I still enjoyed myself.
Before I left for the ferry on Wednesday I managed to go on a short walk to Fishguard Fort on the other side of the harbor and subsequently down one large hill and back up another. The wind made it interesting, especially when I set my camera up on self timer and watched it fall from a ruined wall to the, luckily, soft grass below. Needless to say I deleted that photo! Instead of walking back to the harbor I took the bus that is timed rather conveniently to get you to the port in a timely matter. I’d never been on a proper ferry before unless you count that boat you take to get from SF to Alcatraz, which I don’t. There were only about a dozen-foot passengers and I followed the others through the check in process and deposited my larger backpack in the luggage room. This thing was big, like some tiny cruise liner, we were led onto deck 7 and not knowing where I was supposed to spend the three and a half cruise to Rosslare followed the others into the “food world” area where there were tons of tables and some comfy seats, one of which I claimed for myself, with a view out the rear window so I could watch Wales and the United Kingdom recede into the distance as I made my way to Ireland.
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