{"id":131,"date":"2007-08-13T10:03:07","date_gmt":"2007-08-13T09:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=131"},"modified":"2007-08-13T10:03:07","modified_gmt":"2007-08-13T09:03:07","slug":"stratford-upon-avon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/13\/stratford-upon-avon\/","title":{"rendered":"Stratford-upon-Avon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Otherwise known as shows, food, and walking. Oh and that Shakespeare bloke who apparently had something to do with the town I guess since his name is on just about everything. A friend and I went up on Saturday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon and had a great time in between.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0We went up to see The Penelopiad<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0at the Swan Theatre. I’d never been in the Swan and it’s a lovely space. I haven’t been to the Courtyard Theatre either and having now seen photos I want to go! But we decided since we were going up to see the show we might as well hang around and see a bit of the town. We got lucky as well and the weather was wonderful. We finally have summer here.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0The show was, well, uneven. There were some directorial and design decisions that just should not have been made. One local reviewer was dismissive of the script, but the script was actually very good; it was the directorial decisions that were on the dodgy side. There was some very strong acting and over all it was enjoyable, but there were a few moments that were just unfortunately cringingly awful. Actually the review in the Guardian <\/a>by Michael Billington really says what I want.<\/p>\n

After the show we wandered around Stratford. Walking to the theatre we realised the Bulldog Bash <\/a>was going on as there were hundreds of bikes around, most parked up along the waterfront. So after the show we had a look at the bikes and headed up to the birthplace of that poet bloke. Got tickets for the three properties in town and went through the house and gardens. We saved the other two properties and the church for Sunday. Seeing the town and houses was fun. The church is lovely, the houses are well kept and interesting, and a lovely time was had. Generally though we just took it easy, took our time looking around, and lazed by the river watching the boats and swans.<\/p>\n

Lovely weekend and really must do it more often. Hmmm, the RSC are doing every one of the History plays, all in order, over a week or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Otherwise known as shows, food, and walking. Oh and that Shakespeare bloke who apparently had something to do with the town I guess since his name is on just about everything. A friend and I went up on Saturday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon and had a great time in between. \u00c2\u00a0We went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-27","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4195,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/01\/happy-new-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":0},"title":"Happy New Year!","date":"Wednesday, 1 January 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"So out to Southbank last night to board our boat for our new year's cruise. We were early, as always! But soon loaded on and we had what we thought was the best table on the boat - we were on the lower deck but right at the bow. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4294,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/15\/city-break\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":1},"title":"City Break","date":"Monday, 15 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Up early to head into Pompeii. Had breakfast at the hotel; the view from that cafe is amazing over the ruins and Vesuvius, especially in the morning with the sun rising onto the mountain. The hotel is right at the Amphitheatre entrance so we were early to the gate, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":505,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/05\/modern-design-to-old-pleasure-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":2},"title":"Modern design to old pleasure park","date":"Thursday, 5 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We decided to start today with a visit to a Danish Design Museum (another place full of chairs you can't sit on, this may be a theme in Denmark) (K - but they were lovely and well designed chairs!) The\u00a0museum\u00a0didn't open until 11, so we looked for a place to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/21\/new-york-new-york\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":3},"title":"New York, New York","date":"Monday, 21 May 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Got the train from Red Bank to Penn Station, New York. Pleasant trip that didn't take too long, a bit under an hour and a half. Everything was going well until we tried to get a Metro card - it just wouldn't take our cards. And it wants a zip\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4296,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/16\/pompeii-revisited\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":4},"title":"Pompeii Revisited","date":"Tuesday, 16 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Up, breakfast, and off to the city again. This day's ticket had the Cave Canem mosaic on it. This time we went down to the path that goes around the city walls to see the Porta di Stabia and the mausoleums along that road. Then to see the small theatre\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/20\/being-busy\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":5},"title":"Being Busy","date":"Thursday, 20 September 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Long time no posts but that's because we've been busy. Work and life in general but nothing worth blogging about. I have however done my 5km event and ended up walking it due to sore joints. Hope this doesn't mean I'm getting all old and unable to do stuff because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}