Well my most useful travel item has been my collapsible umbrella - sunglasses are rather superfluous. Wilton House Garden was toured in the misty rain, Stourhead was 20% pouring rain, and today my Blenheim Palace garden meaderings were abbreviated by yeat another downpour - ho hum - English weather and all that.
However - back to the beginning.... Blenheim Palace house is a truly splendid place, on a par with Hampton Court in quality, though perhaps a bit smaller. A gift from Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough in thanks for his defeating the French, and setting the stage for the ascendancy of England, and the decline of France. The history of the family parallels English history with kingly alliances, leading up to the connections woth Winston Churchill, Antony Eden, and Lady Diana Spencer. Subsequent Dukes have developed the gardens, particularly with the help of Capability Brown, and they are HUGE!!!!!! Walking around each loop of the garden takes 30-45 minutes, with enormous lawns stretching forever, thousands of trees, and a mixture of natural woodland gardens, formal Italian gardens, and a beautiful water feature garden.
The interior of the house is fabulously decorated, with enormous tapestries commissioned on Belgium by the first Duke to commemorate the victory at Blenheim (hence the Palace's name). Later the ceilings have been lavishly glided with the help of Vanderbilt money after the 8th Duke married Consuelo Vanderbilt. (Her mother locked her in her bedroom for three days until she would agree to marry him - they had an unhappy 20+ years together before divorcing, but her dowry was very beneficial to Blenheim Palace, and her mother got a Duchess for a daughter, so there was some mutual benefit it seems.)
The house was the base for MI5 during the war, as Hilter planned to rule from there when he invaded England, so had instructed Goerring to spare it from bombing - a very handy protection for MI5, of course.
So I have now done three grand country houses and gardens, each beautiful in its own way. Wilton House had the amazing Cube Rooms and stunning, though smaller gardens; Stourhead had the most beautiful garden of them all, with an interesting, but lesser house, and Blenheim Palace is the grandest house of the three, with extrenely expansive gardens - even though the rain did limit my walking around them to only two hours!!! Tomorrow is Stowe, supposedly one of the greatest landscape gardens, then it will be beating my way back to Heathrow to catch the plane to Germany ...........
Driving has been rather a mission, as one rally needs a navigator to manage the multiplicity of roundabouts whcih seem to po0p up every few miles. Aucklanders crash their way around the Panmure roundabout, while English drivers manage similar roundabouts just to get to the supermarket. So far, other drivers are very courteous, and have only honked at me in anger a couple of times as I got confuse about which lane I needed for which exit. Getting into Heathrow should be fun, as it involves getting on and off the M25 ring-road rather quickly, then finding my way back to the rental depot - all in the fun of travelling....... (photos to follow)
However - back to the beginning.... Blenheim Palace house is a truly splendid place, on a par with Hampton Court in quality, though perhaps a bit smaller. A gift from Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough in thanks for his defeating the French, and setting the stage for the ascendancy of England, and the decline of France. The history of the family parallels English history with kingly alliances, leading up to the connections woth Winston Churchill, Antony Eden, and Lady Diana Spencer. Subsequent Dukes have developed the gardens, particularly with the help of Capability Brown, and they are HUGE!!!!!! Walking around each loop of the garden takes 30-45 minutes, with enormous lawns stretching forever, thousands of trees, and a mixture of natural woodland gardens, formal Italian gardens, and a beautiful water feature garden.
The interior of the house is fabulously decorated, with enormous tapestries commissioned on Belgium by the first Duke to commemorate the victory at Blenheim (hence the Palace's name). Later the ceilings have been lavishly glided with the help of Vanderbilt money after the 8th Duke married Consuelo Vanderbilt. (Her mother locked her in her bedroom for three days until she would agree to marry him - they had an unhappy 20+ years together before divorcing, but her dowry was very beneficial to Blenheim Palace, and her mother got a Duchess for a daughter, so there was some mutual benefit it seems.)
The house was the base for MI5 during the war, as Hilter planned to rule from there when he invaded England, so had instructed Goerring to spare it from bombing - a very handy protection for MI5, of course.
So I have now done three grand country houses and gardens, each beautiful in its own way. Wilton House had the amazing Cube Rooms and stunning, though smaller gardens; Stourhead had the most beautiful garden of them all, with an interesting, but lesser house, and Blenheim Palace is the grandest house of the three, with extrenely expansive gardens - even though the rain did limit my walking around them to only two hours!!! Tomorrow is Stowe, supposedly one of the greatest landscape gardens, then it will be beating my way back to Heathrow to catch the plane to Germany ...........
Driving has been rather a mission, as one rally needs a navigator to manage the multiplicity of roundabouts whcih seem to po0p up every few miles. Aucklanders crash their way around the Panmure roundabout, while English drivers manage similar roundabouts just to get to the supermarket. So far, other drivers are very courteous, and have only honked at me in anger a couple of times as I got confuse about which lane I needed for which exit. Getting into Heathrow should be fun, as it involves getting on and off the M25 ring-road rather quickly, then finding my way back to the rental depot - all in the fun of travelling....... (photos to follow)
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