Catching up On The Holidays 3

After a relaxing day close to the house on Sunday, we decided to be brave and take the car out for a much longer drive to see a couple of castles in Warwickshire. Both of the kids were very excited about this trip: Kaylie was excited to spend the day seeing the places where real princesses used to live, and Keiric... well... he's just always excited :) Jeremy just couldn't wait to try more roundabouts (Who really thought that its a good idea to put those things in the middle of the highway?).

The first castle was a mostly unrestored ruin called Kenilworth. A fortification has apparently existed on the site from Saxon times, but the current ruin is of Norman origin; a great square stone tower built by Geoffrey de Clinton, Treasurer and Chief Justice of England to Henry I, in about 1125. Henry II took control of the castle during the Revolt of 1173-1174 (Thank you, Wikipedia!)
After purchasing our tickets, and using the giftshop restroom - it was a long car ride - we headed across the bridge toward Kenilworth. This is Keiric taking in the view.
Surrounding the castle is the remains of the wall, which bordered a large, man-made lake (now dried up). It was fun to imagine people looking out through the windows on enemy attackers.

One of the great things about this castle was that we were given headsets with information about different areas of the castle. Kaylie, especially, loved listening to the kids' version and going from placard to placard to figure out what track number she was supposed to be listening to. She would listen and then tell us all about what we were looking at.It was especially neat to climb through what was left of the towers and find some of the hidden little rooms. It is difficult to imagine how they ever got comfortable in all that cold stone. My favorite part was as we were touring these 12th century ruins and trying to explain to the kids about the ruins that were left - "That was where the stove was, this is where they built a fire to heat the water, this was a fireplace . . . see the chimney, look there . . that stone cutout... that's where the entertainment center was . . .you know . . for their TV" and Kaylie, completely seriously said, "Mom, they didn't have TV's back then . . .only radios!"
Here's Keiric dressing for Court.

Transcript for Keiric video: "This is a really good place."



Then we went a couple of miles away to see Warwick Castle. Warwick had a vastly different feel than our earlier quiet wandering of the ruins of Kenilworth. It had been continuously lived in since it was built and was in pretty good shape. It had been visited by royalty and other important people (like Winston Churchill) throughout its history, and it was fun and educational to see as well, even though walking through the large entrance it had the feel of a large attraction park like Disneyland, complete with carnival games and merchant booths set up around the perimeter.


We started by heading up the tower for a wall tour which included 500 steps in the stone spiral staircases to get up and down around the wall. There was a great view from the top - though I felt bad for Jeremy since Keiric wanted to be carried up and down the steps.
The wall tour ended with us down in the underground rooms which were decorated to show what the castle would have looked like when the knights were getting ready for battle. The figures were a little too lifelike for Keiric who kept saying - "No me like this place" as he clung to our hands. Then we continued to tour the upstairs of the castle which was decorated as it was in the Victorian period, with most of the original furnishings - including over 3000 books still on the shelves in the library.


Our little court jester - well . . . he always makes me laugh!We stayed till it closed and was dark (around 5 pm) and then headed back home.

There is definitely a romantic feel, or at least thought, of living in a castle, but after seeing them up close, I am really grateful for central heating/air and indoor plumbing!