My girlfriend and I went to Stratford to celebrate our 2-year anniversary (yay!). The day started at the Festival Theatre where we went to see the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. I love Shakespeare, so I was really happy to be seeing one of his plays, but when I see a Shakespeare play performed, it often takes me a scene or two to get into it. The language, the characters' names... sometimes it takes a little time to adjust. However, when I did, I got so into it. The acting was fantastic (I especially loved the actor who played Falstaff), the story is just too funny, and it was a well-done production as far as I was concerned. A lot of fun!
Sugar & Gravy Travel Tip: One of my favourite parts of this 24-hour trip to Stratford was seeing the play as a matinee. This meant that the rest of our stay in Stratford was completely stress-free... no rush to go anywhere. Total relaxation. S&G planning = complete win!
Moving on...
After the wonderful performance, GF & I headed to our hotel: The Queen's Inn. The historic Queen's Inn has been in Stratford for over 150 years. I love the charm of a historical building, so I was drawn to its history and its very reasonable price for 1 night's stay. Definitely a cute building, and the room was very cute and clean, with a HUGE bed. Not my fave hotel that I've ever stayed in, but it was cute, and the hotel wasn't supposed to be the highlight of the visit anyway. The staff was fine... nobody went really above and beyond service, but it was just fine!
After checking in and relaxing for a few, we wandered Stratford for a half hour or so. It's really such a pretty town... lots of cute little cafes, antique stores, used book stores, and whatever the store is, it always fits into the historic little town well. Thankfully the rain held off and we were able to enjoy a nice little walk. We stopped at Balzac Cafe for a quick (and delicious!) cappuccino, too. My GF spent about 6 weeks in Sulmona, Italy recently, and as a result has become a cappuccino snob (I say that with lots of love). Even she agreed that it was a delicious cappuccino! While at the Balzac, a woman told me I smelled really nice. Sweet.
After we wandered, we were getting really hungry and so we got to our restaurant about 30 minutes before our reservation. The kind people at Raja Restaurant found us a table and we spent the next 2.5 hours there. Thanks to the brilliant decision to see a matinee, we were able to stretch that delicious meal out for as long as we wanted. Raja (if you didn't figure this out) serves Indian food, and they do it well. We had pakoras, garlic naan, GF had a mixed vegetable korma (I think), I had the most incredible Bengal Duck (mmmmm!!!), and we finished things off with coconut (for me!) and apple (for her!) sorbets. The dinner was amazing, the service was quite good, and I would go back and eat there again in a second!!!
After that we were stuffed, and went back to the hotel and slept well!
This morning we woke up, got ourselves packed and checked out, and then before we hit the road we grabbed some breakfast at Foster's Inn. GF had been to this place before, but couldn't remember the name of it. While wandering around Wednesday night, we spotted the place, double-checked the menu for her fave dish there, and promised them we'd be back. We went there this morning and it was DELICIOUS - absolutely worth the hunt around for it. I had the Huevos Rancheros (delicious, but too big for me to finish) and GF had Foster's take on french toast. Yum yum!!!
After Foster's, we hopped back on the 7/8, and headed home. Parfait!
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