A Day Out at Hampton Court Palace

#hamptoncourt

Hampton Court Palace is one of the most popular day trips from London. It is easy to reach from central London. The train from Waterloo Station takes about 45 minutes. It is a pleasant if not very scenic journey. As an alternative, you can take a boat up the Thames in the warmer months which is much more scenic. It is also possible to drive there. It is actually quite well signed and easy to find. Parking is available.

When you arrive at the Hampton Court Station, you will need to cross the bridge to get to the palace. After entering the gate, you are directed to the building on your left, which holds a gift shop and the ticket office. Entrance is a bit steep but if you are going to visit the Tower of London, you can buy a combination ticket and save a little that way.

Cardinal Wolsey built Hampton Court, and one might say it led to his downfall. It was larger and more elaborate than any palace that Henry VIII owned. It is not a good idea to show up a volatile king, but the fact that he made Anne Boleyn his enemy that really was his worst move. When he was unable to obtain a divorce for the king, he signed his own death warrant. He then had the good sense to die before the king could execute him. Problem solved. Henry broke with the Catholic Church, granted himself a divorce, married Anne, and the rest is history as they say.

Anne enjoyed her time at Hampton Court; it was a sweet but all too short victory. Anne wasn’t the only one of Henry’s wives whose history is entwined with Hampton Court; her cousin Catherine Howard went from here to the Tower of London and her death (some say she has never really left Hampton Court). The last of the six wives, Catherine Parr, was married to Henry in the small Queen’s Chapel. Henry’s only son, Edward, was baptized in the Chapel Royal, and his mother, Jane Seymour, died here.

Many different options for touring are offered at Hampton Court:

Audioguide
Tudor Kitchens
Henry VIII State Apartments
The King’s Apartments
The Georgian Rooms

You pick up your guide at the information center in the Clock Court. The kitchens, in particular, are not to be missed.

Costumed Guided Tours:

Henry VIII State Apartments
The King’s Apartments (William III)
Self-Guided

It really isn’t that hard to find your way around but you do miss some of the drama without the audio guide or even better the live guides to fill you in on all the little tidbits that make these historic visits so fascinating.

You can visit things outdoors as well, the Privy Garden, the Maze and the Orangery

If you visit on the weekend, there are other tours and presentations offered. A visit to Hampton Court Palace is a whole day affair, plan accordingly. There are a couple of dining options and several great stores.

If you want to go a step farther you can rent an apartment at Hampton Court and actually stay here. The apartments can be rented through the Landmark Trust. This has always been on my bucket list but we have not done it yet. However, when I visit London, I often spend a day tour Hampton Court and I am never disappointed. Planning a visit to Hampton Court Palace should be a part of your London experience.

Staying at the Charming Aspley House Hotel Bath England

In 1830 the Duke of Wellington built a Georgian country house in Bath. It is rumored that it was so that he had a place to meet with his mistress. We decided that this would be the perfect place for us to stay while we were visiting Bath. With only twelve rooms, Apsley House Hotel could provide the personal service that we were hoping to get used to.

Joe saw the pictures of the rooms and fell in love with one with a four-poster bed and red bed hangings. Our other friend decided that she wanted the Duke of Wellingtons former room. Al and I decided that we didn’t want to spend as much as they were spending and opted for a more simple room (it turned out to be the Champagne room where the Duke and his Mistress met).

We were lucky enough to get the Web winter break which meant we had a superior room for two nights (midweek) for £160. Joe and our other friend spent £220 on their rooms. We decided that we would use the £60 we saved to pay for our dinner in Bath.



Thought it is a historic house it has all the modern amenities, ensuite bathroom, wireless internet, flat-screen TV and Molton Brown bath amenities. What more could some hedonistic vacationers ask for? Well, certainly the trouser press was a nice addition as were the two bottles of spring water on our night-stand, which were replaced when we drank any.

Our room The Champagne Room #3 is on the second floor and has a king-size bed, iron and brass headboard and matalasse coverlet with a dark, richly floral sham and curtains. The ceiling was high, at least 12 feet and we had a very pretty chandelier hanging in the center of our ceiling. A dresser, ladies chair, desk, armoire and shaving mirror made it all very comfortable.


The tea tray was just a nice addition.



When we need to order food delivery Anel ordered for us and then had a tray with plates, napkins, and silverware ready for us when the food arrived. We took the tray into the lounge where a fire was burning and used the table as our dining table.

There an honor bar where we were able to have a coke with our dinner. Newspapers, magazines, and books are available if you want to relax and enjoy the cozy atmosphere.

The larger rooms were both magnificent. Five of the rooms are really outstanding four-poster rooms, each a little different. Joe had access from his room to the rear garden and the other room had a California King sized bed and a chaise lounge. The Romance room was next door to us and it had gorgeous blue toile decoration and a four-poster canopy bed.

A car park is located in front of the house. The hotel allowed our English friends Barbara and GB to park there while we walked out to get lunch.



Breakfast is served in a beautiful room with large windows and a splendid view. There is a buffet where you begin your breakfast with juice, fresh fruit (both whole and cut up), cereal, yogurt, stewed prunes and grapefruit slices.

One of the women will ask you for your coffee, tea or hot chocolate order and then you can choose from several types of eggs with the addition of mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, sausage and brown or white toast. They also offer kippers salmon and believe it or not American style pancakes and real maple syrup. It was all beautifully prepared and cheerfully served.

I can’t recommend this Aspley House Hotel highly enough, everything is first class. Both the owners and the managers are delightful to converse with and will go way beyond what you might expect to make sure that you have an exceptional stay. Pampering is what they do best and I felt very much like Lady Iz vacationing with Sir Al.

Newgrange Meath Ireland

I have wanted to go to Newgrange for a while and I have to say, it did not disappoint. It is one of the most spectacular places I have ever visited. We hired a driver to take us out of Dublin, if you have a car, it would be an easy drive out. 

They have a large parking lot and it is a bit of a walk to the visitor center where you learn a little about the site and buy your tickets for the tour. They have a great gift shop I have to say. 

It is another longish walk out to where the bus picks you up to take you out to the grave. You then get on the bus and are dropped at the bottom of the hill where the site sits.  Again, you need to be pretty mobile to do this tour. 

When you arrive outside the tomb, the group is divided into two, everyone can't fit inside at one time. We ended up in the second group so you are encouraged to walk around and entertain yourself while the others go inside. 

Getting inside the tomb requires walking in a bent-over position. How bent over you will be depends on how tall you are. It is rough on the back at any rate. Having said that, it is so worth it. 

It is dark inside the tomb and no photography is allowed but that is also okay since it will be seared into your brain, we were all awed and that is no exaggeration. It just boggles the mind that our ancestors created this amazing place. 

Even more amazing is the fact that twice a year the interior room is lit by the light of the sun!! Our ancestors knew quite a lot more than we can ever imagine. 

You only get a short time inside the tomb since there are groups waiting to get in so savor it. Then it is back outside for a last walk around and then back to the road for bus pickup. 

The visitor center has a museum that will give you all the information you need about the site and others like it. You can tour before you go out to the actual tomb or after, but do take the time to visit it, it is packed with information. 

I loved this visit, it was one of the highlights of a trip to Ireland which had many highlights. I highly recommend getting out to Newgrange if the opportunity presents itself.  

Deep in the heart of England

This is a diary post about one of our many trips to England. While it took place many years ago, the things that we did and enjoyed are timeless. This post is as relevant today as it was the week we took it. 

Our wanderings through the countryside took us from the Fens of Lincolnshire through Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire on the way to Oxfordshire. If you think the only thing to see in Oxfordshire is Oxford, think again!

From our rental cottage in Great Milton, 10 miles south of Oxford, we were able to drive not only to that most venerable of college towns, but the Cotswolds, Stratford on Avon, and by the train to Bath. ALL of central England was within our reach.

This is a diverse area that includes the quiet of the rolling countryside and the speed of the motorway which can take you from Great Milton to Stratford in under an hour. For a more leisurely pace, you can drive along the A-roads through villages and towns. A farm market can be found every day of the week, it's just a matter of finding out which day for which town. We enjoyed a morning in Thame, which I will discuss later and still had time for sightseeing in the afternoon.

A multitude of ways are available to entertain yourself in the Heart of England. The area has a rich heritage and many lovely "great houses" dot the countryside. Waddesdon Manor, Blenheim, and Woburn are an easy drive from Great Milton. Many lovely homes of a smaller scale give another glimpse into the English Life of Privilege. This is an area steeped in history and I hope to be able to share a bit of what we found. Again, you really need a car to get to most of the places we visited. 

Minster Lovell and Rollright Stones, in particular, are deep in the countryside, quite a way off the beaten track. That is not to say that you can't visit this area if you don't drive. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You can take the train from London to one of the cities and from there take the bus even into the villages. A local driver is also a possibility, check with the local tourism office or research online ahead of time. 

Buckinghamshire: A Visit to Charming Ascott House

Ascott House is a hard place to categorize. Technically it isn't an art museum, it is a family home, but the quality of the art and furniture collection certainly ranks it with many art museums.



The original farmhouse was purchased by Mayer de Rothschild in 1873. In 1874 Leopold de Rothschild took it over as a hunting box and converted it from a Jacobean farmhouse into a mock Tutor mansion. Extensive formal gardens offer a place to wander but for me, the main draw was the lovely art collection.

I fell in love with the portrait of a dreamy looking woman. She has a faraway ethereal look also in the Hall are a Gainsborough, a Reynolds and a Stubbs.

In the Dining Room is an outstanding Dutch painting by Cuyp "Dordrect on the Maas". The whole dining room is filled with Dutch paintings. One small one is very nice, Itinerant Musicians by Jan Steen. To complement the art collections is classic French and Chippendale furniture. The Library is dominated by a full-length portrait of the Duchess of Richmond by Gainsborough which it turns out isn't really the Duchess of Richmond.

For the lover of Chinese porcelain, shelves in the Porcelain Room which resemble bamboo are filled with pieces from the Ming and K'ang Hsi dynasty in China. Anthony de Rothschild’s collection of over 400 pieces was given to the National Trust in 1949. A wonderful painting of the Virgin and Child with St John by Andrea del Sarto is also in the Porcelain Room.

All of this is placed in only 5 or 6 rooms mixed with comfortable sofas, bright cushions, and family pictures. Ascott House is the best of both worlds; part decorative arts museum, part family home. We were lucky to have been able to visit here. They are open from late March until mid-September Tuesday -Sunday and bank holiday Mondays. Visits are in the afternoons only 2-5 p.m. They didn't have a guidebook. when we visited. That is very frustrating for visitors.

The gardens are quite lovely and can be visited for a lower rate than the house if you want to just enjoy them. A variety of different types of gardens some formal and some allowed to grow more naturally are offered. The views are quite superb and the gardens are very highly regarded.

It is quite a long walk from the parking lot to the house. If you are either a garden or an art lover, this is a great house to visit. Managed by the National Trust, Ascott House has recently added a tea room at the Cricket Pavilion. Entrance is £10 for the house and garden and must be paid in cash.

Oxfordshire: A morning in Thame

We spent the morning in the lovely village of Thame browsing through the Farm Market and also through some of the small shops in town.

Tuesday is market day in Thame and the on-street parking was all taken by the time we arrived. It looked like everyone from miles around was heading there. There are several parking lots around town so don't worry about where to park. The Farm Market is a combination Flea Market and Produce Market. We started out by buying some jars of jam from one of the ladies. It was all delicious looking and some odd combinations of fruit that you can't find at home. We especially love gooseberry and also rhubarb mixed with just about any other fruit.

I bought myself a container of fresh raspberries to have for lunch and had to wait for the local ladies as they bought their produce for the week. The usual flea market things were for sale, tools, cheap luggage (which we later wish we had bought) and some very strange things like pigs ears dried I assume as a chewy for your dog???

In a wonderful little alley-way called Swan Walk where we found a small jewelry shop. Joe bought a watch and I have to admit I give in to temptation and bought a peridot ring with 10-carat gold which ended up costing only $74. The owners were very friendly and they sized the ring within 10 minutes for free.

Thame is a very pretty little town and I'm sure that it is very like many others in the area. I also bought a Lilliput in another cute little shop we found. It is a very relaxing and fun way to get to meet some locals and to just watch them go about their usual business.

Berkshire: A visit to Basildon Park

When the Lord and Lady Iliffe bought Basildon in 1952 it was what you would call a fixer-upper. It had not been occupied except by troops in the 2 World Wars since 1910. It began its life in the 1770's. It is a Paladian House built of Bath stone, designed by John Carr for Sir Francis Sykes. He was from Yorkshire and had made his money in the East India Company.

We began our visit with lunch in their restaurant. Leek, ham and potato pie and vegetable soup followed by cake. I tried the lemonade again, another mistake but the cake with coffee frosting and walnuts was delicious.

Basildon has very much the look of a family home. The Library looks well worn with floral couch covers and red walls. There is a table full of family pictures. I particularly liked the mirror over the fireplace and I took a picture of it. It is gilt in a fan design with gilt swags.

Off the other side of the Entrance Hall is a room with Graham Sutherland's sketches of the tapestry at Coventry Cathedral, in this room also are the chair that Lord and Lady Iliffe sat on at the coronation.

The walls in the Entrance Way and the Grand Staircase look like Wedgewood Jasperware with a medallion and a griffin.

The dining room has a table set for 14 with pale green walls and jasperware panels. It also has a lovely ceiling with gilt and plaster. The original fireplace in this room went to the Waldorf in London.

Not much is original to the house but there is some Chinese porcelain that is original. It took 2 years to make the familial rose with crest. It had been sold but Lady Iliffe and the National Trust together bought it back.

The Octagon Room has 7 of Batoni's Apostles. It has 2 large mirrors that make the room look even larger than it is. The Green Drawing Room has 2 very interesting Imari bowls and 2 etchings of Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV.

We also visited several bedrooms including Lady Iliffe's which has a canopy that hangs from the ceiling making a bed alcove.

The Chintz Room was closed the day we were there because of a lack of volunteers.

The house has an interesting National Trust Gift Shop. I bought my grandson a piece of Fools Gold which he loved.

Basildon Park
Rt A239
Oxfordshire, England