Everything is still Shakespeare. It was just the same in Salzburg where everything was Mozart down to the local chocolate bars.
I have never been a Shakespeare fan, although I quite enjoyed studying King Lear, Othello and Hamlet for A levels. much of the rest leaves me totally cold and a couple of years ago we went to see a performance of The Tempest in the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral. I found it pretty incomprehensible and not for me. There was an Australian guy sitting behind us who understood even less than us and kept saying "streuth."
We went to Verona once and stared up at Romeo and Juliet's balcony which of course was a total fabrication. The people there didn't seem to understand that they were looking at something that was the product of fiction. it's a bit like standing in Sherwood Forest and expecting to see Robin of Locksley. A friend of mine called Robin once visited the forest and sheltered from the rain by putting up Robin's Hood.
Stratford is a decent place, however, with a picturesque canal basin and we managed to go to the oldest tea rooms in the town. At least they weren't called the Shakespeare anything but were called the Anne Hathaway Tea Rooms. "I didn't realise Anne Hathaway was American" the chap in the tea rooms said. I think he was referring to the actress and not Shakespeare's other threequarters.
Apparently when he died Shakey (I feel I know him well enough now to thus refer to him) left Anne his second best bed. Not his best but his second best. I bet she viewed that as a tragedy and not a comedy.
I hope you like some of my photos of Stratford.
* * *
The day after Stratford we spent quite some time at Croome Court. We are certainly getting the most out of our annual National Trust subscription. This has landscaped gardens by Lancelot Capability Brown.
Capability has always struck me as a strange second name. It also became the one he was known under but it was a nickname and that makes sense. He dealt with wide expansive but highly cultured panoramas and Croome has sweeping and wonderful Vistas. I made some interesting discoveries there and they will form part of tomorrow's blog.
For today, I must return to Stowe in Buckinghamshire which is where Capability was head gardener. He lived at Stowe and was married in Stowe Church. There is a very very tenuous connection between my wife and Capability Brown (they don't come much more vague than this).
Anne went to University with John Wodehouse who is the 5th Earl of Kimberley and owns/owned Kimberley Hall in Norfolk which is a stone's throw from where we live. The gardens of Kimberley Hall were designed by Capability Brown.
But I digress. Yesterday I featured photographs of Stowe and hopefully showed just what a mad place it is. Thankfully there are lots of these mad places all over the UK.
Lord Cobham is responsible for much of the nuttiness. He funded the whole shebang to produce grassland, lakes, trees, temples and monuments. Wandering around the grounds is virtually a lesson in the classics. And what was the purpose of all this? Well it was to impress Queen Victoria and outdo the neighbours. I wonder if the Queen wandered round exclaiming "we are not amused."
As for his Lordship. Well he went bankrupt which isn't really surprising. People often ask "where are the flowers?" But it's not that kind of place. There are very few. What there is revolved around vast open spaces and ridiculous over the top monuments to the Gods.