London: Day 10 (May 22, 2012)

Today we went to Hampton Court.  This palace is most famed for being one of the palaces of Henry VIII.  When I woke up this morning I thought, "Henry VIII was not a nice person.  I'm not sure I want to go and see where he lived."  But I have to say it was quite fascinating!  And it is where Elizabeth I grew up. Other monarchs lived there as well such as William and Mary II.  There was a lot going on there.  We were there all day.  I was the last person from our group to leave and I felt like I still hadn't seen everything.  But I was exhausted and couldn't have absorbed anymore.

The funny thing about me being the last person to leave is that everyone else got caught in some train delay and it took them 3 hours to get back to London (it should only take 40ish minutes).  I was about half an hour behind the rest of the group and got back to London in a little over an hour.  They were still stuck in train traffic and I was stopping at the grocery store.  The wicked mortal in me felt some satisfaction in the justice that I had been abandoned and left to find my own way home.  But then I have to confess that they did try calling me to tell me that they were leaving, but I didn't feel my phone vibrating.  I am grateful that I didn't.

We saw a new musical tonight called Matilda.  It was great.  It is based on the book and was a high energy show where most of the main characters are elementary school age children.  What I loved about it is that these kids still sound like kids.  They aren't being asked to sing like adults.  This makes voice teachers happy.  And now there are a bunch of new songs that you can assign to children taking voice lessons.

Here are some of my pictures of Hampton Court.

This is the ceiling to the Anne Bolyn Gate.  It is an archway structure in the front of the palace.  This is the roof of the arch.

These are the stairs leading to the private rooms of King William.

I was very fascinated by the chimneys of the palace.  They all had different brick designs on them.  I took several pictures, but I won't make you look at all of them.

This is the armory in Williams part of the palace, the walls are decorated with swords, daggers, guns and drums.  It was pretty awesome.

 "There is nothing to rival an English garden."  10 points if you can tell me what movie?
It is really true.  You can spend as long in the gardens as you do in the palace.  Beautiful and Vast!

Complete with a maze garden.  I only came to one dead end.  I think I did pretty well, for a beginner.

This little plaque announces the center of the maze.

A view of the palace from the rose garden.  Sadly the rose garden is not yet blooming.  But there was wisteria and lilacs in other places of the garden which are some of my favorites.