Monday, 18 July 2011

Warwick Castle plc

My love of Castles knows no bounds and on a nice sunny spring day Sarah and I decided to head off to Warwick for an afternoon of fun (not that sort of fun!!). This was in part due to an offer i managed to get whereby i could purchase two tickets for the price of one. When you arrive at the ticket office you suddenly see why this is a necessity, as the price of the tickets requires most people on a normal wage to take out a second mortgage in order to get into the place. Also, rather ingeniously, these 2 for 1 offers are so common that we didn't even need to present the ticket to the lady in the kiosk, she just took our word for it, making me feel like it was purely a device to get me to the castle gate so they could start draining cash from me.

On top of this, you are presented with a variety of ticket choices which makes deciding what you want to do rather confusing as they seem to have changed the castle from a historical building into something like a cross between Alton Towers and Starbucks. "Can i have a standard ticket with a dash of the Dragon's Tower, with shot of Dungeon visit please". This ticket choice would probably set you back about £45. Not forgetting that we had to pay £5 car parking for the privilege of coming to this place.

The haunted tower, as it used to be known when i was a lad, was now the Dragon's Tower from the popular TV show Merlin (an extra £8 charge to go in here and get annoyed by 3D special effects.....i bet the ghosts have long since buggered off in disgust....).

However, it did have some redeeming features, namely entering the living quarters of the castle and entering a turn of the century dinner party where we were introduced as "Lord and Lady Beamish" to the assembled guests. Obviously they realised that anyone who could afford the entrance prices to the castle must have the wealth of a minor royal!! The turn of the century living history was actually quite good fun, but not nearly as much fun as Henry VIII who was walking around the castle grounds booming out proclamations that would make Brian Blessed seem timid.

The weather was wonderful, so we camped out on the grounds and watched a Bird of Prey demonstration, which always cheers up my "feeling ripped off" mood. It was not bad, and i enjoyed the Bald Eagle who would not listen to his handler and when released he flew up into a large tree and refused to come down. We then felt obliged to sit and watch a rather amateurish meant-for-kids sword fighting display in the main courtyard. After watching Henry VIII wandering around trying to marry some of the mums, and threatening to behead a few noisy children (which would have been most welcome!), we decided it was time to "head off" ourselves.

The day was compounded when i discovered that i had the camera set to "video" mode, so instead of getting any nice pics of an expensive day, i got some meaningless video clips! (hence why this is a "text only" entry)!! Anyway, to summarise, my advice for anyone wanting to go to Warwick Castle is: don't go unless you have won the Euromillions the night before!

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