Warwick Castle & Motor Museum with Darren & Marguerite

 Warwick Castle & Motor Museums

A fun filled day was spent at Warwick Castle, a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Our adventure began at the Horrible Histories maze where we had to navigate our way through time to unravel history, we lost count of how many dead ends we came to! We watched the Bowman demonstrate his incredible skills and techniques used centuries ago to protect the fortress from invading armies. We then joined the Falconer on a quest to find the finest birds across the land. We watched a breathtaking falconry display featuring magnificent birds including the world’s fastest bird species, the heaviest eagle and the largest owl. 

        

We had lunch sitting in the beautiful castle grounds and gardens before exploring inside the castle. Magnificent, grand interiors greeted us, and we marvelled at the Great Hall, strolled through the lavish state rooms and sat quietly in the Earls private chapel. 

We navigated our way through the beautiful Peacock Gardens, amongst the elegant peacocks before sitting beside the fountain taking in the wonderful scenery whilst enjoying tea and cake. 

What a fascinating day we had at the British Motor Museum in Warwick, home to the largest collection of historic British cars. It has over 300 vehicles on display spanning the classic, vintage and veteran eras. We all enjoyed our time looking at the different cars on show, posing for photos next to our favourite cars and for many of us, some cars brought back memories of our youth. In the Film and TV cars zone, we viewed popular movie vehicles such as the pink FAB 1 from Thunderbirds, the DeLorean from Back to the Future 2 and the Land Rover Defender used in the opening sequence of James Bonds infamous Skyfall. 

Exploring the Collections Centre which houses around 250 cars from the reserve collections of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust. We could see how the cars were stored and preserved and also restored. 

The much awaited trip to Cadbury World in Birmingham, didn't disappoint. We queued for our Cadbury bags filled with delicious chocolates before entering the Aztec jungle. We travelled 1000 years back in time to Mexico and walked through the tropical rainforest of the Mayan Indians to discover the origins of the cocoa bean which led us to Victorian Bull Street, where we met Quaker entrepreneur John Cadbury and learnt how the Cadbury business began. We all had the opportunity to test our piping skills at the demonstration tables and doodled our names in melted chocolate after watching how chocolate was moulded. We then could pick 3 yummy treats to add to our pots of warm, liquid Cadbury dairy milk, marshmallows and chocolate buttons were the firm favourite. A group photo shoot was next, taken with the famous drumming gorilla from the well know Cadbury advert. Souvenir shopping followed with everyone buying themselves delicious Cadbury treats to take home…….if we didn’t eat them all before!

                          

We spent the afternoon at the National Cycle Museum in Solihull. This houses the largest collection of British motorcycles in the world with over 1000 machines from 170 different manufacturers spanning over 3 centuries. There are 5 huge display halls which we strolled through, stopping for photo opportunities and chatting to volunteers who give up their time to clean and polish these magnificent machines.

We couldn't resist visiting the ‘sea life centre’ and we were lucky enough to arrive just in time to see the Gentoo Penguins diving beneath the freezing water and playing in their icy home. Ozzy and Ola, the UKs first sea otters showed off their swimming skills, they looked so cute!  We found ‘Nemo’ and ‘Dorie’ amongst so many other colourful fish. The ocean tunnel was a unique experience, it’s the UKs only 360-degree ocean tunnel with a glass floor. As we walked through, sharks swam overhead, Molokai, a giant sea turtle swam by as did gliding rays; it was fantastic! 

We thought the giraffes were pretty spectacular! All made out of lego! 

Another day, another museum and the Transport Museum in Coventry which opened in 1980 was full to burst with exhibits. The oldest one dated back to 1937 when H.W. ‘Sammy’ Bartleet gifted the city of Coventry his own private collection of cycles. The first motor cars were added to the collection in 1952 and the collection has continued to grow ever since. The museum’s collection consists of motor cars, commercial vehicles, cycles and motorbikes.  We could climb up the steps and take a ride on the Ariel Cycle, a penny farthing made by James Starley during the 1870s giving us a great a great photo opportunity. We saw the ‘Sky Blues Bus’ which was used to parade Coventry City football club around the city after winning the FA Cup for the very first time in May 1987. The speed demons amongst us loved seeing the two fastest cars in the world, the ThrustSSC which set a new land speed record and broke the sound barrier with a speed of 763mph in 1997 and the Thrust2 which reached a top speed of 633.468mph in 1983.