Waking up to London mornings, waking up to a wonderful feeling of anticipation of a new day, in a new city was slowly drawing towards its end. This would have been our perfect family holiday only if our son could have joined us. But perfection is an ever changing concept at its best. So Chalk, Cheese and Kessari made the best use of this vacation time by packing in as much as they could in the space of the given time. We traveled to places unknown; we saw what was unseen, and a lot more always remained unseen. The abundance of history, nature, people, culture, and much more could not ever be put into a box of a package tour. For me, each day ended with a tired body, yet a mind filled with so much wonder that dreams had no space to knock.

Reality looks like a dream when we walk through places we had never envisioned before. To stumble upon old traversed roads amidst lost forgotten forests, to find ancient monuments, or simply a church hidden at the bend of the road, such tranquil sights warms the heart and once more it reiterates, joy is in the journey alone. We drove through picturesque English countryside to reach the Warwick Castle and Windsor Castle.

Castles in the medieval period played a military role, battles were fought from here to protect territories. Castles were also the residences of noblemen. They were the epicenter of power of the ruler and a show of his strength. Warwick Castle was built by William the Conqueror near a meander of the river Avon. The proximity to the river helped to maintain good trade links as well as served as a tactical advantage point in battles. The high impenetrable stone walls of a castle guards the secrets of an empty barren world within . As tourists we enter this world to fill it with our imagination.

Windsor Castle (in the county of Berkshire ) is different from other historic castles. Windsor Castle has been home to royalty for over a thousand years. It is a working royal palace. Royalty still live here. Buckingham palace is the home of the King in the city and this is his home in the county. One section of the castle is open to tourists. We walk through the different rooms, the dining halls ( formal and informal), the meeting rooms , the room where the queen used to meet her visitors and so on. The grandeur and opulence of the place truly reflects the life of the royalty.

There is a doll house in Windsor castle which was built between 1921 and 1924. It was built for Queen Mary, wife of George V. The miniature doll house is a fascinating work of art. It is a miniature representation of the real rooms. The intricate detailing from furniture to crockery was absolutely amazing. From playing dolls to ruling a nation ,the royal life leaves their impression on our mind all the way.

As a testimony of buried centuries Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain stands amidst what seems like endless green fields. They are big vertical solid stones, set in a semi circular formation, and are prehistoric in age. Archeological research have different explanations to these remains. But to a clueless visitor like me ,they looked like massive stone pillars placed there in a symmetrical pattern. There are many variations to stories of how they came to exist in the present location, some mythical versions, some more research based. Stonehenge stands like a mystery of why and how but not eclipsed by the march of time .

As we followed the river Avon we reached the ancient city of Bath nestled in the river valley. Bath was built in Roman architectural style. The Roman Baths in England was once a religious spa where people came to worship the Goddess Sulis Minerva and bathe in the natural thermal springs. Bath is a beautiful city and deserved a longer time of stay to experience it in its totality. But alas, we were no more than passing tourists through a place which was centuries old.

As we drove out of Bath, Jane Austen was on my mind. Every house here looked like her house to me. In reality she had lived here for six years. I made a mental note to re read ‘Persuasion’ ( the novel was largely set in Bath ) once I got back home. Sometimes pages of a book tell us more about a place than a what we see as a tourist in a few borrowed hours.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players :
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”
William Shakespeare.

We were playing our part of a tourist, a traveler. We were not here to live forever but to carry the visions in our mind, forever. The bard was calling. We couldn’t come back from England without seeing Shakespeare’s birth town and his house in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare’s childhood house was a small and simple house. Trying to understand the great bard’s life with one walk through his house was impossible. Reading an author is the only way we get to know them and also to understand a part of the world they lived in. Shakespeare’s plays were written for his time, for the Elizabethan stage but there timeless universal appeal makes Shakespeare and his work immortal.

The poets, novelists, playwrights who were born in this country through the span of many centuries, who wrote large volumes of work under these skies gave England and English literature a pedestal to stand tall in the world of literati. The universal appeal and everlasting relevance of great writers is measured by their work and not by the boundaries of the world.

Our Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, wrote a poem on Shakespeare to mark 300 years of his death. Tagore wrote in praise of Shakespeare that though born in England, his writings were for the whole world. Greatness and genius recognizing each other. In Shakespeare’s house we walked into that section of the garden where the bust of our Kabi Guru Rabindranath Tagore stood amidst trees and flowering plants. We spent a few minutes in reflection, paying homage to both the Bards in heaven.

The Oxford Dictionary and the Oxford Book Store in Kolkata was the closest I had ever got to the word Oxford. And then, there we were entering the campus of the prestigious Oxford University, the university of dreams for many scholars.

Of course, we were still wearing our tourist shoes which meant our time here was limited. The daughter had been to Oxford earlier, so she once again got into the role of Kessari tours. Chalk and Cheese followed her around like two young graduates.

Those precious few days in London city and around English countryside seemed like a kaleidoscopic vision of multi-coloured pictures. At a whirlwind speed, we roamed from one place to the other. So many times we lost ourselves in the beautiful maze of panoramic views, of history, of culture, of people and their lives. My attempt at recollecting and putting my thoughts down in words and photos is my way of
preserving memories for a longer time.

Chalk and Cheese had their Anniversary celebration in London. A beautifully curated day by our darling daughter Kessari, and that my dear readers will be the last chapter of this series.

To be continued….