Bates Motel in Coventry

Arrival Date: 2012-08-24
Departure Date: 2012-08-27
Accommodation: Ibis, Coventry South

For the August Bank Holiday, we set off from home after work and dinner on the Friday night, arriving in Coventry fairly late on. The hotel wasn’t at all what we expected, and was more of a motel, with rooms leading straight in to the open air. It was a little like Bates Motel from Psycho, but luckily we weren’t in a room next to the reception.

In the morning, we woke up nice and early with grand plans, but first thing’s first, time for breakfast. We went to the hotel restaurant (if you can call it that), and ordered a full-English. When it arrived, we asked for some ketchup, as you do, only to be handed a cheap bottle of burger ketchup, which was pretty weird tasting. Suffice to say, that would be our only cooked breakfast there.

We got in to Coventry nice and early and had a walk around the city, it’s a very nice city with some interesting architecture; a good mix of old and new. A lot of the streets were cobbled, especially around the cathedral.

Both the old and the new cathedrals were beautiful, sat side by side right in the centre of the city, touching by just a wing.

 

There was a lot of repair work around the last remaining steeple of the old cathedral, so we couldn’t go up it, but the entire area was stunning.

Across the way from the cathedrals stood the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, where we were able to explore Coventry through Victorian and Medieval times. Some of the exhibits were a little too geared towards children, but there were also a lot of interesting ones too.

After a quick lunch we drove South to Kenilworth, where we found Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Garden. There wasn’t much to see of Kenilworth town itself, but the castle stood proudly at one end.

Even though the weather wasn’t fantastic, the views from the top of the battlements were spectacular from all around.

The Elizabethan Gardens to the side were also beautiful and serene, with some very detailed marble sculptures, a nice fountain, and a bird cage at the back.

There was also an intact keep, housing some ornately decorated rooms, with marble fireplaces and the like. Not a bad place to retire! After walking around all of these, we stopped in the old converted coach-house at the back for some afternoon tea and a scone, some time between 3pm and 4pm.

Full of cake and cream, we ventured in to the town centre before everywhere closed for the day. We spent more time than we’d care to admit looking around a toy store, then had a quick drink in The Bear and Ragged Staff pub before retiring to the hotel for a couple of hours. The pub sign outside looked familiar, then we realised that it was what we’d just seen in the Elizabethan Gardens in one of the marble statues!

After a couple of hours resting in the hotel, we went back to Kenilworth for dinner, as we’d previously walked past a nice little restaurant that we liked the look of called Harringtons on the Hill. A great choice, the food was brilliant, and sent us to bed full and happy.