^ The quaint village of Warwick.
^ A stately home. Note the very crooked gables at the top! So much character.
^ The Church of Warwick. The church usually contains all of the historical records for each community.
^ Every old church has beautiful stained-glass windows, so here is my token stained glass photo.
^ The church also contains tombs for the many Earls of Warwick over the past 10 centuries. This one is John Dudley. The stone work on these tombs is amazing.
^ A very old Union Jack flag hanging in the church.
^ This bear is the symbol of Warwick.
^ Descending the 160 steps from the church tower. Going down was the difficult part, actually. You had to hang onto the rope handle for dear life as you twisted your way to the bottom!
^ At the top of the church tower, enjoying the views.
^ A view of the church from the castle.
^ A view of the castle (and surrounding country) from the church.
^ Some of the old walls around the city still exist.
^ A few of the old entrances into the walls of the city still exist also.
^ Notice how deep this entrance gate is!
^ The first view of the castle.
^ To enter the castle you must first past the portcullis (spiky gate) and the murder holes (where soldiers above can poor hot oil down and shoot arrows at the intruders.) You learn a lot of new terminology when you visit a castle. If you don't have the opportunity to visit, you can always google "castle terms" and learn about it that way. Or, you can learn about it at the castle, then forget, then google it anyway, like I did.
^ This rampart is the oldest part of the castle.
^ The boat house on the Avon River.
^ A jousting tournament.
^ In the ancient times, it was common for castles to practice falconry and have many birds of prey. (Don't ask me why. I haven't googled it yet.) The Warwick castle had this beautiful bald eagle, and his name was Archie. I'm not sure his name fits the majestic gleam in his eye.
^ Many arrow loops around the castle walls were used to protect it. Even so, the castle was overtaken more than once in its history.
^ Taken from Ceasar's tower.
^ I wasn't prepared for how big of a tourist attraction this would be, although I'm not sure why I was surprised. It is magnificant and we aren't the only people in the world that enjoy things like this. I just felt once or twice like I might be at Disneyland.
^ By this point in the castle we had climbed about 500 steps.
^ These were some homes resting in the shadows of the castle. They had magnificant gardens leading down to the river.
^ It's just a rough life for some people.
^ In this photo, you can see the remnants of an old stone bridge that used to lead up to the castle.
^ Here is the same bridge from below.
^ Part of the castle was set up to show what life would be like in the castle in about the 17-18th centuries. There were many wax sculptures depicting life in each room.
^ The wood-work in this room was incredible.
^ There was a great hall that held armour and weapons.
^ The dining hall.
^ King Henry the VIII. During his rein the castle was owned by the Crown. Here he is surrounded by women—surprise, surpise!
^ This was the castle chapel. The wax figures in this room were looking at ancient hymnals... wait, these were actually real people, looking at their castle map. My mistake.
