Ever showed up in a city with no idea what the attractions are, how the transport works, or where to eat? That’s what we did today. With a tight budget and an incredible lack of planning, we had a magical day in Kenilworth and Coventry.
It was only last week that Jazy and I decided to go to Coventry. We picked it on the sole basis that it had a castle Jane Austen used to visit. That, and we didn’t want to fly all the way to Ireland. So we booked train tickets – Coventry is about an hour and a half from London by train – and celebrated our spontaneity. While we were literally still celebrating, the castle in question posted on their website that they would be closed on September 15 (today). The tickets were nonrefundable.
The weather for today was predicted to be an awful wind storm and constant rain. Championing our adventurous sides, we decided to go to Coventry anyway and perhaps we could see some other cool castle that was kinda nearby (and there may or may not be a bus to get us there, who knows!). We popped off the train early this morning – the sun was even out at one point, which is an English miracle – and, low and behold, there were bus route maps. We found the bus stop, the bus came on time, and some nice gentleman on the bus even told us which stop to get off to see this maybe-cool castle in Kenilworth. It was all so easy it was eerie!
Kenilworth Castle:
We got off the bus and immediately in front of us was a field that looked like this:
We had no idea where the field leads, but we skipped (okay, dramatization, we walked) through the fields eating sweet wild blackberries as we went. At one point, we stumbled upon the remains of a 14th century abbey, and cemetery where some woman saw we were taking pictures and came up to us offering to take our picture. This was something we encountered all day; people went out of their way to be extremely nice to us, and even though it was cool we were from Texas! Here is the kind lady’s photo:
She gave us directions to the Kenilworth Castle and we continued to hike some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen. Peaceful meadows, weeping willows, blooming wildflowers of every colour. We came upon Kenilworth Castle very easily, and discovered that it served as a fortress for English royal power from the 12th to 17th century. Originally constructed in the 1100s, Kenilworth Castle was one of the favourite summertime destinations for Queen Elizabeth I, who gave the castle to her famous lover, Sir Robert Dudley. Once rebels seized the Castle in the English Civil War in the mid-1600s, the castle was intentionally destroyed. Only recently did they restore some of the castle and make it a historical landmark.
You can see the ruins of the great castle walls, the Elizabethan gardens, and even a little peak of quaint Kenilworth in the background. While it was pretty windy at times, it only drizzles a couple times, so we managed to stay dry and mostly warm the entire day! Another woman volunteered to take our photo at the top lookout of the castle, several hundred feet in the air (it doesn’t look like it’s very high, but it is, and with the wind I thought there was a 2% chance one of us gets blown off the tower).
When we returned to the ticket office, the men there offered their suggestions for nearby lunch. I have been vastly disappointed in British food, because up to today it’s been way overpriced and completely flavourless. However, the men pointed us to a pub not far from the castle: Virgins & Castle. As the oldest pub in Kenilworth, we took guesses at how old it was – I thought perhaps 1630s, Jazy guessed in the 1700s. Turns out, it was first used as a pub in 1563!
(Yeah, it’s a blurry picture. I was trying not to look like a creep in this cramped space.)
We both wanted to try authentic British food, and having zero expectations, I just picked something off the menu: the handmade sausage and mashed potatoes in onion sauce. We learned as we waited that Shakespeare likely came into that exact pub, as his girlfriend and mother lived nearby. Woah. Cool. Anyway, the food was the best British food I’ve ever had (and I don’t expect it will be trumped) and hands down the best sausage I’ve ever tasted. Everything was tender, and the sweet onion sauce would have compelled me to order another plate for dinner if I could have!
Coventry:
After our long and wonderful lunch, we got the bus back to Coventry (and still didn’t manage to get lost! We took random streets in what we thought might be the right direction and still managed to find the only bus stop around…). Coventry has a medieval street built in the 1400s/1500s that looks like this:
We totally came upon this street by accident. Most things in Coventry were closed on Sunday – a relic of an old way of life – but we preferred to admire the architecture and had no interest in shopping. As we made our way to the city centre, we found The Holy Trinity church (I believe that was its name, we saw many churches!):
When we went in, one of the church members came over to us and was compelled on his own accord to give us a thorough 20 minute tour of the entire church, describing each of the architectural and historical features. The church was built in the 1450s, but he pointed out bits of the church that had to be repaired after being destroyed by bombs in WWII. There was over 650 years of history there, complete with the original wooden roof and magnificently carved original gargoyles.
We finally headed to the only attraction I had put on my list of things to see today: “The Shell” church. The church was built in the 1200s in the middle of Coventry, but it was absolutely gutted by a blitz bombing in 1940 during WWII. When Churchill and King George came to visit the ruins of the once-great abbey, it was decided that the city would keep what was left of the church standing as a reminder of all that was lost during WWII.
Incendiary bombs ripped the heart out of this church, but left its outer walls standing. The starkness of the empty church is haunting. You can see where the pillars stood, where the alter was, and even little bits of broken stained glass in the smaller windows that hadn’t been blown out by the bombs. Across the street, St. Mary’s Hall, built incorporating a wall from the 1100s, was still standing in good order. Whereas many war memorials are marbles pillars of some sort, The Shell is the most poignant building in all of Coventry for its unusual reminder of the consequences of war.
After spending some time to reflect on the ruins and other windy little town roads, we stopped for delicious hot chocolates. While Coventry had some amazing moments in our personal tour of The Holy Trinity and The Shell, Kenilworth is by far my favourite English city so far. It’s even in my top three for European cities. The peaceful, charming town combined with its vast stretches of fields and lakes was magical. I realized today how this country inspired so many great English writers and leaders. Today, I walked in the steps of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I and Winston Churchill. Incredible.
Stay tuned for the next adventure – my boyfriend Nick arrives in London Tuesday morning and we’ll be hitting up all sorts of places in London, and hopefully I’ll also have Parliamentary news to report soon too!
Adventures in the UK! 