As I arrived at my destination in Stratford it was immediately noticeable the amount of tourists in the town. With the association of Shakespeare I guess it was stupid of me to think otherwise.
I parked the car and then with my friends, walked along the banks of the Picture-postcard River Avon. Complete with weeping willow trees and littered with rowing boats, we felt like we had stepped back in time.
We had walked about a mile when we came to the centre piece of the town, the Royal Shakespeare Company bui
lding set right on the river. The playhouse stages 2 shows every day of the week except Sundays and there are matinees on Saturdays. There is also access to £5 tickets for anyone aged between 16 - 25 which really is an incredible offer considering an adult price is upwards of £25.
lding set right on the river. The playhouse stages 2 shows every day of the week except Sundays and there are matinees on Saturdays. There is also access to £5 tickets for anyone aged between 16 - 25 which really is an incredible offer considering an adult price is upwards of £25.Continuing our walk along the river we stumbled across the church where the great playwright was buried and paid £2 each to see his grave. I would recommend saving yourself the money as we found it hard to appreciate what is essentially a tombstone with a famous name engraved on it.
We then began to walk towards the highstreet for lunch when we saw signs for 'Anne Hathaway's Cottage'. Considering none of us were particular fans of the 'Devil Wears Prada' star, we were reluctant to visit the house where she was presumably raised. But eager to see every attraction we decided to go to the cottage after all.
'Anne Hathaway's Cottage - 1 mile' read the sign, at least 40 minutes later we were still bounding through countless housing estates and children's play areas in the direction of the elusive cottage. After travelling quite a distance we saw the entrance to the cottage and the excitement began to build, "surely the cottage must be amazing to warrant such a trek".
We practically sprinted up to the entrance using our last remaining energy before being punched straight back down to earth by the middle-aged receptionist and her £11.50 per head entrance fee, which we reluctantly paid.
We visited Anne Hathaway's living room, her kitchen and her garden and that was when I started to doubt that Anne Hathaway had lived there, as none of the artifacts or pictures seemed to suit a household in the eighties (when she would have been born) the cottage seemed almost 16th century! Upon Googling 'Anne Hathaway' I found out that she was in fact born in Brooklyn, New York, and so I jumped to the only conclusion available, that she must have moved to the UK at an early age before moving back to the US to follow an acting career. As we left I mentioned to an elderly couple that I loved Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain and they burst into unexpected laughter, I guess they must have loved her in that role as well in hindsight. With the disapointment of missing pictures of the LA star in action or even as a child (just drawings of some old woman) we left the cottage and began our walk back into town.
We headed straight into the Dirty Duck pub for a drink and to reflect upon our visit to the cottage and the town as a whole. We concluded that Stratford is a nice town, steeped in history but with plenty of modern touches, it is certainly worth a visit, however avoid Hathaway's cottage, catch her on DVD instead, its cheaper!
City Rating 2/5
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