Our short stay in Corfu was in part to facilitate our catching an inexpensive flight to the UK. As it happened the best bargain was a Ryanair booking to Birmingham, England. Upon arrival we rented a car, and began our explorations of the British Midlands.
Our first stop was the touristy town of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of the famous playwright, William Shakespeare.
This town is first and foremost all things Shakespeare including the family home where he was born in 1564, his primary school, various local haunts, and his final resting place in the Holy Trinity Church where he was baptized and worshiped.
Situated along the banks of the river Avon, Stratford presents itself as a charming town with its fair share of twisty timber framed Tudor buildings where nothing lands level or plumb.
At Stratford, the Stratford-upon-Avon canal connects the river Avon to Birmingham to the north. The canal towpath made for a lovely walk, and we thoroughly enjoyed assisting several narrowboats manage the locks. The 26 miles from Stratford to Birmingham contains 54 locks which makes for a 2-3 day journey by barge.
The UK has over 3000 miles of navigable inland waterways and canals which, at the beginning of the industrial age, were solely used by commercial barges. Today the system is primarily used by pleasure craft, almost exclusively the liveaboard and holiday rental Narrowboats. I must admit that I have been in love with Narrowboats and the associated bucolic lifestyle for many years. My interest in barges began several decades ago when I stumbled upon a book on Narrowboats at the Book Barn, the wonderful used book shop in Niantic, Connecticut, where we spent many pleasant hours browsing the shelves. Since then, I’ve often contemplated a quiet retirement cruising the canals, and perhaps now is just the time for us to consider a life on the water. Traveling along at 5 knots per hour seems the perfect pace!
At this point, I should mention that I grew up in Stratford. Not Stratford-upon-Avon, but Stratford, Connecticut (upon the Housatonic river), and understandably was quite interested in visiting the original Stratford and taking in a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Company. On the bill this week: Macbeth.
The Stratford of my youth was home to the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre, where on a middle school class trip I attended a matinee performance of the Tempest. That was my first live theater experience, and I was totally captivated. A few years later during the Theater’s summer season, after the intermission when ushers were no longer checking tickets, I would make my way to the upper balcony, where a few friends and I would find an empty row and enjoy a free second half performance. Unfortunately the theater closed in the mid 1980’s and in 2019 after years of neglect was the victim of arson.
P.S. I attended my first rock concert in 1970 at the American Shakespeare Theatre to see the British group The Kinks. "You Really Got Me”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJVwzI3w78
And just for fun an updated version of “You Really Got Me”performed live by Ray Davies of the Kinks at the 2010 Glastonbury festival with full choral accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRFpG4GQriQ
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