Things to Do in Stratford-upon-Avon

Royal Shakespeare Theatre backstage tour

You'll walk the fly floors where pulleys squeal and spot the prompt corner's tiny bulb that has saved many a flustered actor. The guide lets you stand on the thrust stage. When the house lights dim you smell decades of dust and greasepaint, and the empty auditorium feels oddly alive.

Rowing a punt from the Bancroft

The wooden punt glides over riverweed that brushes the hull like wet silk. Swans shadow you, hoping for crusts, while willows droop so low their leaves skim the water and leave cool droplets on your forearms.

Shakespeare's Birthplace after 4 p.m.

The oak floors groan underfoot and the guide dims the lights so you can see the hearth glow flicker on replica sixteenth-century crockery. School groups have left, so you hear the scratch of quills in the ink-demo room.

Tudor World at the Falstaff Experience

The crooked building on Sheep Street leans so dramatically you instinctively tilt. Inside, waxwork plague victims emit a faint sweet-wax smell and the floorboards pop like distant musket fire.

Friday Victorian street market

Stalls draped in canvas smell of iron railings after rain. Local cheese-mongers hand out slivers of Stilton so creamy it coats your tongue, while a busker cranks a hurdy-gurdy that buzzes like a hive.

Old Town timber-framed inns along Church Street where beams creak companionably

B&By riverside lanes south of the theatre - swans tap the windows at breakfast

Budget chain hotels west of the station, ten minutes' walk but half the price

Country-house hotels across the river in Shottery, fields start at the garden gate

Can-side narrowboat moorings for those who want to rock with the ducks

Henley Street backpackers above Tudor shopfronts - late-night chip smells drift up