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After breakfast we drove a short way to Stratford-upon-Avon.

The town is a popular tourist destination owing to its status as the birthplace of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, and receives an estimated 4.9 million visitors a year.

This is a view down the River Avon toward the Holy Trinity Church
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There was a festival in town on the day we arrived. Sheep Street was closed to vehicles and booth after booth of food and crafts for sale.

This is fudge - more varieties than I thought could exist.
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We walked through town and along the River Avon to Holy Trinity Church

It is often known as Shakespeare's Church, due to its fame as the place of baptism and burial of William Shakespeare. More than 200,000 tourists visit the church each year.
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Shakespeare is buried here - but in the church. We were visiting on a Sunday and could not enter due to services. So we wandered around the grounds

The past building dates from 1210 and is built on the site of a Saxon monastery. It is Stratford's oldest building, in a striking position on the banks of the River Avon, and has long been England's most visited parish church.
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While walking back to the town center we walked by many old buildings including a church with ancient gargoyles.
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View of a flower basket and a church in the background
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Mercure Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Hotel. This traditional hotel, set in a striking brown-and-white Tudor-style building.
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A view down Church Street
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From Stratford-upon-Avon we drove through Cotswolds to the Batsford Arboretum. Beautiful home on the grounds which is still occupied.

The 56-acre arboretum at Batsford is home to one of the largest private tree collections in the country, providing something of interest throughout the year and famed for trees which originate in Japan and China.
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The collection includes a number of Red Data species which are extinct in the wild and several UK champion trees, famed for their size.

The arboretum is managed by the Batsford Foundation, a charity set up by the 2nd Lord Dulverton in 1983 to promote education, conservation and research into gardens, arboreta and historic landscapes.
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Right next to the Batsford Arboretum is the Cotswold Falconry.

Started in 1988 Cotswold Falconry houses around 150 Birds of Prey many can be seen during the free flying demonstrations, while over thirty separate species have been bred in noncommercial breeding aviaries. The aim of the center is to promote the greater understanding about birds of prey through education and fun,
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This is Rio a little falcon. When they said free flying they mean it - they let this little guy go, and he flew way up in the sky then the trainer stepped out with a lure over his head and Rio dove from several hundred feet straight to the trainer - very impressive.
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This is Guy a Bateleur Eagle
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This little Owl was next - a falcon you can understand as a falcon on a free flight - but an owl? Sure enough they released the owl. He flew to this perch and just sat there for several minutes then moved from one tree to another.
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I was able to get one, out of 30, which was an in focus shot of the owl in flight. The setting for the flying demonstration was very intimate so, you are very close to the birds.
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The big surprise a free flying vulture!!!! They let two vultures out on free flight. They went out of sight - a long way away, The trainer said sometimes they stay out for a day or two. Then we saw them begin to circle around and around way in the distance. Then slowly they made their way back to the Cotswold Falconry.

This vulture is only 50 feet away as it flew by.
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Next on our drive was the Chastleton House and Garden not too far away. But Virginia Ann was hungry, so we stopped for tea - which included sandwiches. The parking place for the Chastleton House was a long way from the house - and we had 15 minutes until closing - Virginia Ann raced down the path to make sure we were able to get in - we made it by 5 minutes.
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The home is a good example of a Jacobean country house, Chastleton House was built between 1607 and 1612 by a prosperous wool merchant as an impressive statement of wealth and power.

Owned by the same increasingly impoverished family until 1991, the house remained essentially unchanged for nearly 400 years as the interiors and contents gradually succumbed to the ravages of time.
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Terraces are the site of two croquet lawns, originally laid out by Walter Whitmore-Jones in the 1860s. His version of the croquet rules published in The Field in 1865 became definitive, and Chastleton is considered the birthplace of croquet as a competitive sport
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Church next door to Chastleton

Chastleton House is famous for a scene from the Civil War where a loyal wife duped (and drugged) the soldiers to save her husband. The anecdote shows the fundamentally domestic and peaceful world of England and the disorganization of war.
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The church graveyard with cows grazing in the pasture nearby.
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A rare Dovecote - Four-gabled pigeon-house at Chastleton House
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As we were racing down to the hose when we arrived - no pictures. Leaving we had plenty of time - so a picture of the trail to the parking lot - up a small hill.
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On the way home we made a few wrong turns - but the countryside was so beautiful.
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Virginia Ann back in Chipping Campden on the way to dinner - another excellent lamb dish.


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