We took a longer day trip to Blenheim Palace, the family home of Winston Churchill, which is near Oxford. It took us a couple of hours to get there, and (again) it was a somewhat rainy day. We lucked out and toured the palace grounds first when it wasn't raining, and then went through the rooms of the palace after the skies opened up. The palace is quite impressive -- huge! -- and the grounds include a beautiful lake with nice walking trails, a fenced rose garden, and some nice formal gardens with fountains. The interior of the house (the rooms we saw) had a lot of historical information about the Churchills. I didn't know before this that President Kennedy awarded Winston Churchill honorary US citizenship; I believe the signs said this has only been done twice in history. As we left, we could see the ongoing preparations for a big horse trial event that was taking place the coming weekend.
We didn't get out to the more kids-oriented area, due to the weather, but we were able to convert our passes to annual passes for free. So hopefully we'll be back at some point before next September!
 |
| Getting ready to enter the main grounds of the palace. |
 |
| Mom H, me, and Charlotte in the front courtyard of Blenheim Palace |
 |
| Checking out the formal gardens |
 |
| The lower level of the formal gardens |
 |
| Stopping to smell the roses |
 |
| Paul got some gorgeous pictures of flowers at Blenheim! |
 |
| Quick snack time in the rose garden... gotta refuel. |
 |
| Posing on the bridge to nowhere (over a small river on the grounds) |
 |
| Walking alongside the lake |
 |
| Charlotte loved the organ music, she was dancing like it was rock and roll |
 |
| So I danced with her |
 |
| The organ player |
No comments:
Post a Comment