I am in a bed-and-breakfast in Warwick, a small Tudor town in the middle of England. My parents and I have spent the last three days at Stonehenge, in Bath and at Warwick Castle. The castle was particularly enjoyable — we spent 5.5 hours there. It’s like a medieval theme park in a real historic setting. Stonehenge was less impressive; we made the mistake of going on a sunny Good Friday holiday so were stuck in a traffic jam for more than an hour, just two miles from the site. It wasn’t a waste of time, though. The audio tour makes all the difference.

Stonehenge on a beautiful spring day.

There were lots of tourists, all posing and taking photos. I’m kind of sad that every tourist seems to have a camera and is mindlessly snapping away. I can’t actually complain because I probably do it as well. It just feels like the way people hunt and take trophy animals; they’re taking trophy photos to prove that they were here.

Anyway, what I meant to write is that I like this little guy’s way of posing.

One of the younger tourists-with-cameras.

Warwick Castle is very impressive. I don’t have a photo of it in its entirety because I used a telephoto lens today (and was too lazy to change it). Hopefully, I will get some good photos of it from my parent’s camera. Here I am in front of the Castle Mound.

The Warwick Bowman was very funny. He was the highlight of the visit. If he was a rock star, I would be a groupie. Here he is, demonstrating to Alex (the boy) and the crowd how inadequate bowman armour is for protecting people against a sword strike to the neck.

We were lucky in that I accidentally arranged to be at Warwick Castle on the Easter weekend. Easter Sunday (today) is the anniversary of the death of the Earl of Warwick in the Battle of Barnet in 1471. Today, there was a full scale re-enactment of a siege battle. It’s actually less riveting than you might expect but I appreciate the effort the actors have gone to. The armour is really heavy and hot, especially on a warm day like today.

I am not sure why there were women on the battlefield. These women had come down from the ‘camp’. We visited earlier and the actors were lying around, cooking or making armour and shoes. They cook pheasant, rabbit and bread and eat it throughout the day! Imagine getting paid to do that! Dress up in costumes, relax in tents and eat!