Warwick Castle & Museums
Warwick Castle and the sun was shining for us. Warwick castle is a medieval castle, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. 
Our historical day included watching the Falconers Quest and what a show! Featuring owls, vultures and eagles all swooping, looping above our heads with wingspans of up to a whopping 9ft. At one point there was up to 60 birds taking flight, it was truly amazing and really breathtaking to watch.
Inside the castle was spectacular. We could experience the Victorian high society depicting a weekend house party with the elite, Winston Churchill and of course the Prince of Wales who would later become King Edward V11 were amongst the guests. We wandered slowly around the State rooms which tell the story of the castle’s ownership. Queen Anne’s bedroom was magnificent, her bed was cloaked in red velvet and gold silk curtains, the exact bed that she died in, in 1714. The Great Hall is the largest room in the castle and displays the Earls armour collection.
We were off to the British Motor Museum in Warwick to explore the world’s largest collection of historic British cars. This museum holds over 400 British classic cars and celebrates the past, present and future of British motoring. The museum has many different zones and we began our journey in the motoring cinema where we watched footage from the archives about the evolution of the Landrover and why it’s the Royal families favourite mode of transport. We walked along the ‘time road’, a century of motoring history beginning in 1896 and we could see how motoring has changed over the years, even the roads, cars and fashions. The sports car section was a huge favourite of ours, we marvelled at the Lotus and the Aston Martin and loved to pose for photographs next to them.
The Film and TV cars were fantastic to see especially the replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future 2 and the Pink Fab1 from the Thunderbirds which many of us remembered. There were period displays to look at, John Carters garage representing a 1930s independent garage and the office of the car magnate William Morris, which the museum has preserved all the original contents and reconstructed it as to how it was on the last visit by himself. After lunch, we walked across the road and into the Collections Centre, a huge building housing about 250 cars from the reserve collections of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust.
A morning was spent at the Sealife Centre in Birmingham. Gentoo penguins were the first to greet us, they dived into the icy water and swam up to the window to say hello. They looked very happy in their cold, icy house. We ventured into the UKs only 360 degree ocean tunnel and marvelled at the sharks, rays and hundreds of tropical fish swimming over our heads and underneath us as we walked through. Molokai, the giant, green turtle was awesome and bigger than we expected weighing an impressive 20 stone. It was a fantastic sight. The Jelly Invaders zone was magical with all different types of jellyfish dancing in their illuminated tanks.
Our next adventure was a cruise on a canal boat with live commentary on the expansive history of the Birmingham canal network. This was very relaxing and a great way to sightsee!
We jumped in the Jolly bus and made our way to The National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull. This museum is recognised as the finest and largest motorcycle museum in the world and opened its doors in 1984 with a collection of 350 motorcycles on display. It now has over 1000, all fully restored to the manufacturer’s original specifications. Martin was in his element, he was very knowledgeable about some of the bikes and loved chatting to the volunteers who spend their spare time cleaning and polishing the bikes, revelling in their favourite hobby. We ambled through the different halls, it was great to see a replica motorbike that Barry Sheene raced on in the Grand Prix and also to see how much motorbikes have evolved through the years.
It was then onto Coventry Transport Museum where we lunched first before entering the museum that houses the largest collection in public ownership. The collection consists of motor cars, cycles, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. Most of the collection exists through the outstanding generosity of individual donors. The museum is laid out as a journey through time. We wandered 19th century streets and discovered the first bicycles, carriages and cars, explored the first car factories and witnessed their wartime destruction in the blitz experience. Finally, we came face to face with the world’s fastest car- Thrust SSC. What a unique experience and a fun museum.
The interactive gallery was fantastic and Wayne and Neil raced each other to change a tyre in a ‘pit stop’ and Mai and Simon took a spin in a drivers practice car.
An exciting trip to Cadbury World in Birmingham was enjoyed. Our chocolaty adventure began in the 4D cinema where we sat on motion seats and dived into a bowl of liquid dairy milk, rode the crunchie rollercoaster and took to the skies in a Cadbury crème egg airship piloted by the caramel bunny. This was great fun and caused lots of laughter. Next, we collected our free chocolate bars (yummy) and travelled 1000 years back in time to Mexico and walked through the tropical rainforest of the Mayan Indians discovering the origins of the cocoa bean. We listened to the Cadbury story and how the business was established.
We then got to have a go at tempering, a technique shown to us by a Cadbury’s world chocolatier and also doodled our names in chocolate at the demonstration tables. Simon made this look really easy! We jumped into a Beanmobile and rode through a chocolate wonderland and of course remembered to smile at the camera for a photo memento. The interactive purple planet was great fun, we grew our own cocoa trees, danced in chocolate rain and chased crème eggs.
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