Bus Tour
On the 22nd of October the students from the Stratford College Creative and Media course took advantage that they were in Stratford and went on two tours. The first tour we went on was on the big red open topped buses. We started near the river and we went through all of Stratford. We got some headphones and when we plugged them in a woman talked to us about all the sights that we were seeing.
The tour on the bus was good but the information from the headphone lady wasn't brilliant. It had some music in the background as we drove from location to another location and at times it would play over the top of the voice recording and other times it would stop halfway through playing. Also the voice recording sounded fairly old, even if it might not have been! It would jump and skip and also fuzz quite often. The voice recording was quiet and even when you pressed to turn it up a bit it was still fairly quiet. It didnt help that it was windy as well seeing as I sat at the very back.
The bus journey was cold but apart from those few minor problems it was good. The information was good though and well thought out. Even when there were gaps where the bus was moving from place to place and the music wasn't playing, the voice recording would tell you about the modern day roads and what they would have used to be and when they were made and who they were made by. For instance the Fosse Road that we travelled down on the bus was made by the Romans and that why the road is completly straight.
When we got of the bus at the end, I think everyone had enjoyed it because people were talking about the bus journey and what they had seen. Apart from it being cold, it was good fun and I had a good laugh.
The Birthplace Tour
After the Bus tour and after we had all got something to eat, we went to Shakespears Bithplace. This was the second part of the tour. We walked into the reception and we had to watch a television screen where there was information about Shakespear and his plays and about how famous they have been and who had played his characters in his plays, which had been turned into films and television.
Two doors then opened and we went into a dark room where an overhead projector showed us about Shakespeare and when he was born and what it was like to live in the times when he was born.
In the middle of the dark room there was a fake tree and around the room cartoons of Shakespeare's Stratford. It made you feel like you had actually gone back in time. We then walked into another room where there was a big model of London town and the globe and when the video told us about the globe burning down because of a play that Shakespear put on, the model lit up and looked like it was burning.
We went into another room where there was another video of all the plays that Shakespeare ever put on. From plays in Stratford to Films and Television series.
We then walked into the Birthplace gardens and into his house. A women was standing in the room in traditional costume from when Shakespeare was born. She told us some facts about the house.
We then moved along into a guest room. Because this room would have been the warmest room in the house it was the guest room. Shakespeare's father used to make gloves and so we went into the room where he would have made them and sold them as well. The staff at the Birthplace made the gloves so they weren't perfect but they gave you a pretty good idea of what they would have been like.
We then climbed up the stairs in to two rooms. The first room was where you could see Shakespeare's work up close. There were also windows that had been saved where famous people who had also come and visited the Birthplace had scratched in their names. For example Charles Dickens. The next room was another bedroom. A bed would have cost a lot in those days so if you had a lot of beds it showed you were very wealthy.
The next room was Shakespeare's parents room and where people think Shakespeare was born. It was a fairly big room, for it held a double bed and a cradle and toys for the children to play with.
The Birthplace tour was better then the Bus tour because the staff at the Birthplace were dressed up in the traditional clothing, they also got us interacting with the tour so it made it more interesting for us as students. We also learnt a lot because they told us information in detail.
I think the staff at the Birthplace were very good and helpful and I think them dressing up made it more fun to see.
All in all both tours were good but the best one was the Birthplace tour. It was more interactive and it was fun to learn things in a new way.
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