We saw the end of a changing of the guard ceremony as well, but our tour guide was rushing us around a lot. That night we saw Chicago, which was well done. Sunday they went back to America. 

Here's one side of the castle. 

The main tower bit is actually not round, but slightly wonky. 

The last weekend of my family's visit, Victoria and I went down and met them in London. We went on a tour of Windsor Castle on Saturday. 

This is a view of the trebuchet in the field from one of the castle towers. 

Here is Warwick Cathedral, seen from the top of the highest tower. 

This is a view of the other towers from the top of the highest tower. You can see the countryside nearby as the town is not very big. 

This is a view of the towers from the courtyard inside the castle. 

The castle has a watermill by the river which is used to generate some of the castle's electricity. It was originally used for grinding flour, etc. 

Here's an upclose look at the trebuchet's wheels. Soldiers walked in the wheels to spring-load the trebuchet. In the background is a nice view of the castle. 

The other live show we saw was a trebuchet. A trebuchet is like a giant cataput that can sling things a long way. They slung a cannonball the length of the field. This is a picture of the trebuchet firing. 

They had a longbowmen archery display to show how fast and powerful the bows were. They were able to defeat the French crossbows because, despite being not very accurate, when the fired in large numbers they tended to be a wall of arrows. They could fire about twenty arrows in a minute as well, which seems pretty fast to me.  

On Saturday we went to Warwick castle. Warwick is close to Stratford, and also very historic. Warwick castle is privately owned by the amusement group that does Madame Tussade's and some amusement parks here. We were a bit worried it would be cheesy, but it was really well done. 

This is the cottage of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife. 

Here's dad on the boat during the cruise. 

We went on a boat cruise down the Avon river. There are tons of swans and geese on the river. I guess they get fed by all of the tourists. 

This is the house next to the foundations. I think it was owned by a relative of Shakespeare. 

The area at the bottom of the picture where the bushes are is the location of Shakespeare's house. It was owned by the church years after he died. One vicar tore it down because he didn't want to pay taxes on it, so the foundations are all that is left. 

This is the house from the front. There used to be houses on either side of this house, but they were torn down by the Shakespeare Conservation Trust to reduce the risk of a fire. It is common in Britain for houses to be built connected to other houses. 

My parents went away and travelled to the Lake District. I met up with them the following weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford is known for being the birthplace of Shakespeare. Here is the house he grew up in. 

There were also lavish ponds and hiking trails in the gardens. 

Here's the family resting after the house tour. 

Another picture from the gardens. 

We also went to the maze in the gardens, where I got very lost but Victoria found her way through easily. She jumped out to surprise me during this picture. 

Inside the house, the rooms are covered in ornamentation, and every room has a painted ceiling like this one.