Our second full day in London was spent at Hampton Court Palace. For those of you who don't know my mother and I are absolutely fascinated by the reign of the Tudor dynasty over England. So on our 7 day trip to England we couldn't pass up the chance to visit the London palace ruled by the Tudor dynasty for so long. We took the tube to the Waterloo station and bought train tickets to take a South West train to Surrey. The train ride lasted about an hour and took us through a nice scenic route outside the city. The palace was just across the River Thames and my initial thought was how the palace is built entirely of brick and all the other european palaces and castles I have been to are made of limestone or a white shade of building material. We had pre-bought tickets online so after collecting our entrance tickets to the day we found the "cloak room". Yes we got to wear green velvet cloaks to be dressed for the king's court. We also got audio guides which were full of great information and helped steer us around the palace.
We started out the tour in Henry VIII's kitchens. It was fascinating to see room after room each used for a different prep process to complete 1 of 3 meals a day eaten by the king and queen of England. Once we passed through the final kitchen room there was a long dimly lit hallway that had two service windows on either side of the hallway. The audio guide told us that the two windows were used by the kitchenmaids who prepared the food and carried across the small expanse of the hallway to the servants who would then carry the food upstairs to the dining hall. There were several areas are the palace that showed the obvious divide between the classes. We moved onto the wine cellar where all the beer and wine was stored. We saw a sign in at the entrance that showed just how much food and drink was consumed in a years time at Hampton Court Palace. Pretty impressive. The audio guide told us that once the royal family had exhausted all the food resources in the area they would move to another of their palaces to take up residence till the food ran out there as well.
Next was King Henry's apartments, which started in the great hall for dining. My mom and I got to sit at the head table meant for the king and queen. Next was a room used for entertainment, so it was covered with floor pillows and famous games played during King Henry VIII's reign were set out about the room for visitors to play with.
Just passed the entertainment room was small privy chamber (toilet). The audio guide said that when men used the WC they would cough so as to disguise the sounds. Of course this became a running joke between us for the rest of the trip.
Side note: The hotel we stayed at was very nice witha great location and very clean. The only bad part was the drafty door behind the bed. Our solution was to buy some dish clothes and packaging tape and close up all the cracks in the door. Worked like magic.
As we were making our way through the rest of the tour of Henry VIII's apartments we were abruptly stopped by one of the king's men dressed in a period piece costume. We were told to stop where we were and line up against the walls of the long hallway for a procession of the "royal wee" would be coming through shortly. I really liked the Hampton Court Palace was designed to entertain and educator visitors of all ages. The little kids loved this! It waited maybe 5 minutes and here comes a man dressed in period piece clothing carrying a small jewel encrusted box holding what is supposed to be the "royal wee". We went on to see the small closet chapel where King Henry married his last wife who survived him Katherine Parr. Don't forget King Henry VIII had six wives and was known for beheading you if you gave him the stink eye.
The audio guide then told us to move onto King William III's apartments on the other side of the palace. I haven't read too much about this king and where exactly he falls in the English royal dynasty, but it was interesting to see the evolution of how the royals decorated their palaces between the two time periods. In William's apartments there were many receiving rooms, one even decorated entirely with military weapons. There was even a public viewing room for when the king dined, slept and received visitors. We also got to see the King's personal privy chamber, which of course was decked out in purple velvet. My mom made sure to bring the most recent copy of Evansville Living with her so we could take pictures around London and try to get published in the magazine. For those who don't know, my home town puts out a monthly magazine and if you take your picture with the magazine in a far away and exotic place then you might get your picture published in the next month's edition.
We ended the visit with the brisk walk through the gardens. It was pretty cold and windy so we saw maybe 1/4 of the entire gardens and decided to head back inside for a quick lunch at the palace cafe and then back to the train station.
Side note: The hotel we stayed at was very nice witha great location and very clean. The only bad part was the drafty door behind the bed. Our solution was to buy some dish clothes and packaging tape and close up all the cracks in the door. Worked like magic.
The next day we decided to start out the day with a little shopping. I'd heard of Primark from a couple of people so we found the London location. May have been a mistake to go on a Saturday afternoon, but I did walk away with a couple of pieces of clothing. We ventured back to Buckingham Palace to see the area when the Mounting of the Guards ceremony wasn't going on. Up on the Queen Victoria fountain there was a true brit in his "pants" and posing for pictures with people wearing a mask of Queen Elizabeth. We walked down the mall towards Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus. We strolled through Chinatown making plans to go back for lunch sometime that week. We ended the day back at Covent Garden for a little bit more shopping.
The next day we took a day trip to Cambridge. I had pre-bought our tickets and we went to the Liverpool station the day before to pick them up. We left London around 9:00am and arrived in Cambridge about an hour and a half later. Once we got into the station we were a little turned around, but picked up a free map of Cambridge from the train station. We had a pretty lengthy walk ahead of us into the central part of town (15-20 minutes), but we found side streets to wander up and down admiring the architecture. We first cam across Emmanuel College, which allowed public access to walk around the grounds of the campus. We were being obvious tourist snapping photos in every direction. As we made our way into the city center we saw several old churches and went into the oldest church in Cambridge (Benet Church).
We ate lunch at a small cafe across from King's College. I ordered an English Sunday roast (roast beef, potatoes, carrots, peas, yorkshire pudding and gravy). My mom ordered an english breakfast (baked beans, toast, hash brown, bacon, sausage and eggs). It was very good and very filling! We went off to check out a couple of stores and walk through an open air market. The market was selling all kinds of food and locally made crafts. We decided to venture through a couple more colleges, but found that they either charged visitors an entrance free or were closed until later in the afternoon. We stumbled upon the canal that runs along the backs of the colleges and were approached by two different companies offering us a discount on a punting ride. I had tried to buy tickets before our trip for one of these boat trips, but was told it would be best to just show up and wait for a big enough group to go in a boat. Mom took a little convincing to go ride a boat in the snow, but I think the woolen blankets and hot water bottles won her over. We piled in the punt with a group of young travelers, one of which was a student at The King's College. Our tour guide was just great. She told us so much information about everything we were seeing, but she didn't make it overwhelming and she told some pretty funny jokes along the way. It was so neat to travel up and back along the backs of the college in a classic punt. A punt is a shallow boat that sits between 8-12 people and because the bottom of the boat is so flat it actually can't tip over. The punt is propelled down the river by a long metal stick that is used to push off from the floor of the river. I think was by far one of the best things we did on our trip!
We ended our trip to Cambridge with a little shopping a big shopping center and then a drink and cheesecake at a restaurant called Nando's. We had a little time to kill before our train back to London arrived so we shopped around the Marks and Spencers grocery mart in the train station. For dinner that night we trekked to an authentic italian restaurant for pizza and salad. The food was good, but very oily and ended up making me sick. Despite the bad dinner this was one of my favorite days in London.
I'll be sure to update you on the last leg of my journey in London shortly!
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