When we left off, I teased that we’d had an interesting visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral.  St. Paul’s is a gorgeous cathedral, designed by the great Christopher Wren (who did many iconic London buildings).  When we visited in 2008, we went inside the cathedral and were awestruck by the magnificent gold ceilings.  This time, there was a ceremony going on involving a bunch of little boys and their families (it had the air of a graduation of some sort, but there were no caps and gowns, so I’m at a loss) and we didn’t get inside – which was okay, as we simply wanted to walk around and admire the dome.  But what made the visit interesting was that St. Paul’s was the site of the Occupy London encampment.  Somehow, I’ve been able to make it through the entire Occupy movement without crossing paths with Occupy DC; I had to journey across an ocean to come face to face with any Occupiers.  (Please note: I don’t talk politics on here, so I won’t take a position one way or the other on Occupy.  I have an opinion, but it’s not blog material.)  We were literally stepping in between sleeping bags and ducking through groups of Occupy protesters as we made our way around the cathedral.  I actually thought it was pretty cool to be treading through what I think is a movement destined for the history books.

Anywho.  That same day we crossed the Thames and visited Shakespeare’s Globe on the South Bank.

I was totally geeked out over getting a backstage tour of the Globe.  Now, okay, I realize this isn’t the actual Globe, where Shakespeare performed and staged his plays.  (The original Globe Theatre burned down in 1613; it was later rebuilt, put on a few more years of shows, and closed permanently in 1642.)  Shakespeare’s Globe is a modern reconstruction, which opened in 1997 not far from the original Globe site and was built using as many authentic materials and techniques as practicable.  In its heydey, the Globe was just one of several theatres on the South Bank of the Thames, which acquired quite the reputation.  The Puritans were constantly agitating for shutting down the theatre district – it was raucous and noisy and the theatre-goers got up to all kinds of drunken shenanigans.  That was how Shakespeare and his pals rolled!  I would have loved to see that fun-loving crew in action.

The stage!!!  So while Shakespeare’s Globe isn’t “the real thing,” it was still darn exciting for this theatre nerd.  I own The Complete Works of Shakespeare; I’ve read many of his plays and seen a few – including some extremely funky interpretations, which I think are the best – and I’m giddy with dorky glee over anything associated with the Bard.  So to get a behind-the-scenes tour of a theatre where Shakespeare’s plays are performed regularly in London was very, very cool for me.  In fact, it was the off-season for tourists, which meant that hubby and I got our own awesome private tour of the theatre (but was also a bad thing, because it meant there were no shows being performed).  One of these days, I’m going to get to a Shakespeare production at the Globe.  I don’t even care which play – I love them all, except Titus, yuck.

We sat in one of the boxes while our guide explained fun facts about the history of the original Globe and the construction of the new theatre.  And then two enormous, loud groups of middle-schoolers came in, and we fled.

The Globe also included an interesting backstage museum that was devoted more to showcasing costumes and props from productions in the new theatre than any historical artifacts – but that was okay with me.  I love checking out actual production-worn costumes and used props.  Like I said, nerd alert.  (As much as I love theatre, I like to be on the periphery.  That’s why I played in the pit orchestra instead of acting in my high school musicals – every year except senior year, when I was sick of dressing in all black and being tethered to my violin for every school show.   So I requested, and received, a very tiny, non-speaking part in the dance chorus in Brigadoon.  But yeah, meandering around backstage and checking out props is more my speed than starring in the show, thankyouverymuch.)

See?  Costumes!  Fun stuff, right?  Hubby would have looked cute in Hamlet’s father’s suit of armor.  (He probably disagrees, but my blog, my opinions.)  We had so much fun touring the Globe and basking in the backstage glory of the museum.  My only regret is that we didn’t get to see a performance.  Next time, I’m definitely going to try to get there during the theatre season and see a play.  (I’ll take any Shakespeare, but I’d particularly hope for The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth or one of the Henries.)

Next Friday will wrap up Messy and Hub’s Great England Adventure 2011, although I’ll have another post or two to follow, inspired by the trip (like a special post on the experience of having afternoon tea in England).  So be sure to come by as I put my food photographer hat on next week…

No trip to London is complete without a walk past some of London’s most iconic buildings – or that’s my opinion, anyway.  This year, hubby didn’t want to go into Westminster Abbey; he’s not as into history as I am, and he has a problem with the idea of illustrious historical figures (or just rich people) being buried inside churches.  I can understand where he’s coming from, but for me that viewpoint takes a total backseat to the thrill of seeing the effigies of Elizabeth I and Mary Tudor, or the plaque dedicated to Chaucer – people I’ve read about for years.  Still, I settled for just motoring by the Abbey this time.  On the next trip, we’ll go back in and get our audioguide on for sure.

Fortunately, hubby was not opposed to posing for a self-portrait outside the Abbey.  Isn’t he cute?

Not far from Westminster Abbey is the Thames River and the Houses of Parliament.  Someday I would love to take a tour of Parliament.  I have friends who’ve done it and told me that the tour is spectacular.  It’s another reason for me to go back to London ASAP…

And of course, any London visitor must wave hello to Big Ben.

I’ll leave you – for now – with this spectacular view across the Thames.  See the dome of St. Paul’s in the back?  We had quite the interesting visit there this time…

But you’ll have to wait until next week to find out about that!  Check back on Friday for more London.

The British Museum is a must-stop when hubby and I visit London.  There’s just so much to see there – it’s unbelievable.  (When we traveled to the UK in 2008, we took a cab to the museum and after we told our cabbie where we wanted to go, he said “Oh, yeah, we’ve stolen some marvelous stuff.”  He also said that hubby looks “not unlike” Harry Potter.  It was a fun cab ride.)

We checked out the Greek and Roman art and architecture…

Including some heads and busts I was very excited to see!  This ^ is Livia and Tiberius, who I considered old friends (or frenemies) after reading I, Claudius this summer.

Augustus

Germanicus (one of my favorite characters in the book – I felt sorry for him in the book because of that nutter butter Caligula, and in reality because some zealot carved his forehead up – poor guy).

And, last but not least, the man himself – Poor Uncle Claudius…  If you haven’t read Robert Graves’ classic, please do check it out!

After a few hours at the museum, we walked (yes, walked – we’re a hoot on vacation) over to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery for a quick run-through before closing time.  I love the British National Gallery and I can’t visit London without popping in to see the portraits of Henry VIII and wives, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare and Jane Austen.  (We also swung through the modern portrait rooms on this trip and were lucky enough to see a very nice portrait of Prince William and Prince Harry looking particularly dashing.)  Then we spilled out of the museums and onto Trafalgar Square, where we posed for self portraits and checked out…

The Olympic Countdown Clock!  How fun.  I would love to go to the Olympics someday, but I’m more of a Winter Games type of girl.  (Hubby and I tried to get Vancouver tickets in 2010 but were foiled.  Maybe another year.)  But any Olympics are fine with me – I love the pomp, the sportsmanship, the Parade of Nations… Being in London as the UK started to psych itself up for hosting was pretty exhilarating!

We enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Trafalgar Square a bit longer, turned to leave, and practically ran smack into this guy…

Yes, that IS a large statue of George Washington, gifted to the people of Great Britain by the people of Virginia.  I know what you’re probably thinking, and believe me, we were thinking the same thing: “Huh.”  We’re used to seeing statues of G-Dubs everywhere we turn at home – that’s par for the course when you live in northern Virginia, work in DC, and attended law school at The George Washington University (go Colonials!).  But it did seem a little… I dunno, weird?… for us to give the British people a statue of the man who led our rebellion against the British government.  Hubby and I both had identical confused looks on our faces when we ran into George.  And we’re proud Virginians. But… okaaaaaaaay then.

Whew, that was a whirlwind day of statues, from Poor Uncle Claudius to the Father of the American Nation.  Come back next Friday for more London adventures!

Our second day in London was devoted to hitting some favorite sights from our last trip.  We started with a morning stroll by Buckingham Palace, which was a mere 15 minute walk from our hotel.

We saw a guard in a Sentry-Box.
“One of the sergeants looks after their socks,” says Alice.

(We didn’t actually see the Changing of the Guard this time.  We’d seen it in 2008, and once was enough.  I’m 4’11” – the perfect height to get smacked in the mouth by elbows and cameras.  Crowds don’t really agree with me.  I’m sure hubby and I will go to the Changing of the Guard again some years from now, perhaps when we’re (hopefully) toting a little traveler with us.  But for this trip, we both agreed that we were cool with skipping the spectacle, and we just stopped by to tip our imaginary hats to the Queen, and then went on our way.)

Onward to King’s Cross to catch the Hogwarts Express!  The station was under construction and there were signs everywhere directing Hogwarts students to the new location of Platform 9 3/4.  Hubby and I had a giggle – wouldn’t it have been easier for Harry to find the platform with helpful posters to guide him?  Instead of having to ask directions from a disgruntled station employee?

I struck a pose with my brother’s newspaper.  And then forgot to send it to him, so it never ended up getting published.  Ah, well.

Then it was on to one of my favorite places in London – the British Library!  Oh, how I love this place.  Let me count the ways: (1) the King’s Library; (2) Jane Austen’s writing desk, with her GLASSES!; (3) the last chapter of Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s own hand; (4) Beatles lyrics written on the back of an envelope; (5) the Magna Carta; (6) Shakespeare’s First Folio (yes, another one)…  It’s a magical place.  I could have stayed all day, but I courteously restricted my library lovefest to two hours – for hubby.  (He was fine, actually.  He loves the rare science and nature texts on display there, so we tend to split up as soon as we get inside.  He knows he can find me by the literature section and I know I can find him in the science corner if we need to reunite.)  The British Library never disappoints.  Gosh, I adore it.

All that walking and bookish excitement got us hungry, so we headed off for a special lunch at Wild Honey.  The food was phenomenal – we each had the prix fixe lunch, starting with a velvety squash soup garnished with pepitas, followed by a fish fillet and couscous salad, and then dessert, which I actually forgot what it was; the soup was the highlight.  But really, what makes Wild Honey special is that it’s the site of a former gentlemen’s club that was said to be the model for P.G. Wodehouse’s Drones Club – the raucous house of iniquity where Bertie Wooster and his pals smuggled stolen taxidermy, played made-up (and nonsensical) bar games, and escaped the law by fleeing into the dining room, where the hapless policeman would be immediately assaulted by hundreds of flying dinner rolls hurled in his direction.  I’ve been a fan of the Jeeves books for years and hubby loves watching Jeeves and Wooster with me – one of my favorite British television shows, starring the incomparable duo of Hugh Laurie as Bertie and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.  We were both ecstatic to visit the fictional Drones Club, and we planned to celebrate by hurling the dinner rolls at anyone who walked in the door after we were seated.

We didn’t, though.  We were charmingly well-behaved.  Look at my classy hubby getting ready to enjoy his lunch.  Wild Honey was fantastic, and we’ll definitely be dining there again on our next trip to London.

Next Friday we get our culture on!  Check back!

On our first day in London, hubby and I did something a little unusual for us: we planned a his-n-hers day.  Oh, we didn’t split up for the day.  But you see, usually when we travel we like to spend our time doing activities that we both really enjoy.  Wandering around the city, checking out cultural activities and landmarks, eating great food and tasting wines, or hiking if we’re in a rural area – those are things that rev both of our engines.  But on our first day in London, we each wanted to do something the other wasn’t terribly keen on.  Hubby was dying to go to the Natural History Museum and see the dinosaurs.  I couldn’t have cared less about the dinosaurs.  Yes, I know that London’s Natural History Museum is fabulous and well worth the time.  But, the thing is, I don’t care about dinosaurs.  They’re all dead, no matter which way you slice it.  I can see dino skeletons at the Smithsonian back home in D.C., or at the Natural History Museum in New York if I want to be extravagant and actually go somewhere.  So I really didn’t care if we went to the Natural History Museum at all.

Meanwhile, I was itching to go to the Victoria & Albert Museum.  We didn’t make it there on our last whirlwind trip to London and I wanted to see it.  I’m a sucker for anything Queen Victoria-related, I love decorative arts, and I’d heard that there were amazing china displays in those hallowed halls.  And oh, how I love china.  (Sometime I’ll tell you about the time I went to the White House and the Secret Service quizzed me on Presidential China.  Describing the china patterns of obscure, forgotten Presidents of the United States is something of a party trick I’ve cultivated.  I foresee a post coming up.)  But, well… so you know how ambivalent I said I was about dinosaurs?  That’s about as ambivalent as hubby is about decorative arts.  (He does actually kind of like china.  Dude actually picked out our wedding china.  No lie.  He’s now mad at me for telling The Internet that.)

This is a dinosaur.  I think it’s a T-rex, but it could be an Allosaurus.  I always forget.

So, from the above you can probably tell that I went to see the dinos.  I may be ambivalent about large extinct lizards, but I’m decidedly not ambivalent about hubby and seeing dinosaurs makes him SO deliriously happy that I willingly tag along.  These aren’t the first dino skeletons I’ve dawdled around, and they won’t be the last.  (And since we were overseas, I didn’t have a working cell phone with me, so I couldn’t even play Angry Birds.  I actually read the placards and took pictures.  That’s how much I love my husband.)

Seeing the blue whale was my only request at the Natural History Museum.  I have a thing for whales – in fact, as his very first gift to me, for my birthday about a month and a half after we started dating in 2001, hubby adopted me a whale.  (A humpback whale calf named Ember.  So cute.)  So my reward for dragging my sorry behind through the dinosaur exhibits at these museums is always a quick motor through the room that is invariably dedicated to mammals of the deep.

Now, I’ve been talking myself up a lot in this post.  But I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m more accommodating to hubby’s interests than he is to mine, because that would be terribly wrong.  No, after our morning of dinosaurs, we headed off for an afternoon of china, furniture and period clothing at the V&A.  Hubby accompanied me just as willingly and uncomplainingly as I did for him.  And… oh, my gosh.  The china exhibit at the V&A was pretty great… but then… they open up their “storage” floor and it’s just room after room, row upon row, of glass cases, 20 feet high, crammed with china and porcelain and enamelware and you-name-it from every country and every time period since the Stone Age.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures.  I was “woman-ing” the camera that day and I’m not sure I stopped to hand it off to hubby before I zoomed off in a blur on a mission to try to see every single dish in the museum.  But friends… what an afternoon I had.  In fact, to this day when I get stressed, hubby rubs my shoulders and says three words: “V&A China Hall.”  And instantly I go to a place of bliss.

So after our his-n-hers day, as you can imagine, we were pretty hungry.  We headed off for one of my London musts: afternoon tea at the Orangery.  (P.S. After these recaps finally wrap up in a few weeks, look for a post on the afternoon tea experience.  It’s always one of the highlights of any trip across the Pond for me.)

Now, the Orangery is not the fanciest place you could have afternoon tea in London.  It’s not the Savoy, by any stretch of the imagination.  But to me, there’s nothing better, because the Orangery is, essentially, the former greenhouse of Kensington Palace.  For those not in the know, Kensington Palace was the residence of Queen Victoria… and Princess Diana… and is currently the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Kate!  Call me!) and a slew of junior royals.  It’s steps away from a (flattering) statute of Queen Victoria and the Sunken Garden, which I think is the most beautiful garden in London.  They have miniature orange trees on all of the tables, delectable meringues, and incredible orange scones.  So you can keep your Savoy and your Ritz.  Anytime I’m in London, the Orangery is my choice.  It’s literally tea at a Palace.

That ^ is the three-tiered afternoon tea.  Not even the fanciest option.  Go ahead and wipe the drool off your keyboard.  I’ll wait.

Dear Orangery, I love you so much.  I will always, always visit whenever I am in London.  And tell all of my friends about your gracious hospitality.

After fortifying ourselves with tea, sandwiches and scones (and, okay, the pastries too, although they’re always my least favorite part – give me crustless cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, and scones with clotted cream and jam any day), we meandered over to the Sunken Garden, another London must-visit for me.  I love to gaze wistfully in – it’s roped off – and dream of how, if I was Duchess Kate, one way I’d exercise my royal prerogatives would be to talk my way into an afternoon of lounging inside the garden with a book and a pot of tea.

I love that there are flowers – bright, thriving, happy flowers – even in the chill of October in this garden.  It’s really as if it’s a magic garden, set apart from the rest of London and not having to follow our rules.  Maybe that’s why we humans can’t go in – it might break the spell.

And lastly, here’s a view of Kensington Palace.  (With my beloved Sunken Garden in the foreground.)  Isn’t it just magical?  If I was a British royal, this is certainly where I would want to live.

So there you have it – our first day in London.  A little fun for him, a little fun for her, and tea for two…

Come back next Friday for more London adventures.  In fact, we’re going to be here for a little while, so you may as well settle in and get comfortable.

After traipsing through the English countryside for the better part of two weeks, it was finally time for hubby and me to head into London.  Our typical practice on European vacations is to rent a car for the first part of the trip and then return it in a town with easy access to our final big-city destination.  This time, that plan had us returning our rental in Oxford and taking the train from there to London.  But before we get to London, we had a day to explore Oxford and – while I know we didn’t scratch the surface of what the town could have offered us – we made a start.  My only regret upon seeing Oxford was that I never made it here when my little sis (sorority, not biology, as we used to say) was getting her Ph.D. here.  I can only imagine what fun it would have been to experience Oxford through the eyes of a student.

We didn’t actually go into any of the Oxford colleges, although I wanted to.  (This pic of All Souls was snapped through the gate.)  The colleges I really wanted to see were Balliol (for Lord Peter Wimsey!) and All Souls (because I’d just read A Discovery of Witches).  We didn’t make it to Balliol, but I did get to see All Souls and… WOW, is all I can say.  What a stately, imposing, breath-taking place.  (Don’t worry Cornell, you’re still tops in my heart.)

We meandered down the busy streets of Oxford, sneaking peeks into the colleges and the tea shops, imagining what it must be like to actually study here.  (I’m a nerd, but I own it.)

The Radcliffe Camera was one of the most beautiful, coolest buildings in the entire city, in my opinion.  Now part of the Bodleian Library, its sun-drenched stone walls contain who-knows-how-much knowledge inside.  And outside…

BIKES.  BIKES EVERYWHERE.  If the spires and the bookshops and the harried-looking college kids hurrying to and fro with bulging backpacks wouldn’t have tipped you off, you’d still know you were in a university town from all the bikes.  You couldn’t walk ten feet before you’d bump into one.  I love bikes, so I was in heaven, snapping pictures to the point that hubby told me to stop taking pictures of bikes already.  But there’s just something about a stone wall, a lamppost, and a bike with a basket.  Gets my heart racing.  Hey, we all have our things.

I saved the most important parts for last.  This ^ is the Bodleian Library.  Talk about getting my heart racing.  Ask hubby – for days all I could talk about was seeing one of the most famous libraries in the world.  And when we got here, it was just awe-inspiring.  The mysterious inner courtyard, the golden stone, the high windows… I nearly died of happiness.

This is my “EEEEEE-SO-EXCITED-TO-BE-HERE” face.

Inside we checked out a “Treasures of the Bodleian” exhibit, which contained such marvels as Shakespeare’s First Folio.  (This was taken no-flash – pretty great, huh?  And it was a dark room.  We loved on our camera the entire train ride to London.)

And finally, one more important stop – Blackwell’s!  I make a point of visiting the big-deal bookshops when I’m traveling and Blackwell’s was a must-see.  And a must-buy-a-book.  Yes, even though I normally don’t have the space to squeeze books into my backpack when I travel, I made an exception because I simply had to get something from Blackwell’s.  Hubby patiently let me browse and I ended up with two: a Jeeves book by P.G. Wodehouse (I have most of them, but Blackwell’s had a couple that I don’t already have), and South Riding, by Winifred Holtby, which I’d never seen before but which looked good.  I’ve not cracked the spine yet, but I’ll be sure to tell you about it when I do.

Well, kids, we’re off to London!  Check back next Friday for the first post detailing our London adventures.

Okay, now, pretty much all Cotswold villages are beautiful.  But Bourton-on-the-Water might be the most beautiful of all.  (I said might be, so don’t jump down my throat if you disagree!)  Bourton-on-the-Water is referred to as “the Venice of the Cotswolds” because of the crystal-clear canals running all through town and the picturesque bridges that guide hoardes of tourists over the water’s edge.

Hubby and I had a couple of extra daylight hours to spare after our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, and I had been hoping that we’d find the time to get here.  It’s a tiny little postcard-stamp-sized town, so you don’t need an entire day for Bourton to reveal its considerable charm.  In fact, the charm pretty much hits you over the head the moment you step out of your car.

Hubby and I didn’t exactly “tourist it up” here.  We just wandered the canals, poked our heads into a few shops (where I drooled over Emma Bridgewater mugs that wouldn’t fit in my backpack and that I was pretty sure I could track down in the States anyway – so it was a browsing kind of day) and took the sunset as our cue to meander back to Stow-on-the-Wold.  (Oh, and I can’t even with the town names in the Cotswolds.  So much charm.  I die!  Where were the Cotswold regional planners when the D.C. suburbs were sprouting?)

It was a Jaclyn kind of afternoon.  Hubby and I generally make very good travel partners, because we can’t get enough of each other and we have the same ideas about how to behave on vacation (read: quiet and polite).  But while we both enjoy the cultural activities that come with traveling in Europe, we have rather different approaches.  Hubby is a planner; he likes to have an itinerary that is more detailed than General Patton’s, and to stick to it down to the minute.  I’m a bit more free-wheeling.  I like to have days where all I do is wander around, look at restaurant menus, sip tea, snap pictures of local cats and generally go where the wind blows me.  Over seven years of traveling as a married couple, we’ve found ways to please us both – hubby gets to plan and organize to his heart’s content, but we leave a few free afternoons or days in the itinerary for Jaclyn-style drifting.  Bourton-on-the-Water was the result of just such a provision – a few free hours after Stratford, so I jabbed my finger at a page in our guidebook and said “This looks fun; let’s go.”

We even saw a telephone box and a posting box side-by-side!  I obviously had to get a picture.  My Grandpapa loved British telephone boxes – even had one in his backyard – and, well, I like letters and mail.  Bourton-on-the-Water was happy to oblige both Grandpapa and me.  Just more proof that this town is the best.

Next Friday the road trip part of our journey ends – sniff!  We’re dropping the car off in Oxford, so come have a look around with me!

See that diamond-paned window on the right side of the frame?  Someone very special was born in that room.

This is the house that the legendary Bard, Will Shakespeare, was born in.  It’s been a dream of mine since high school to see this place.  Hubby and I hit Stratford-upon-Avon for a day trip to see some of the Shakespeare sights.  Ironically, although hubby was an English major, I was the one jumping out of my skin and squeaking with excitement.  (Well, maybe that’s not ironic.  Hubby doesn’t do those things even when he is super excited.)

We toured Shakespeare’s house and saw “the birth room” where the Bard was born, then checked out another room that had been given over to a little Shakespeare trivia.  None of the Shakespeare sights in town are particularly “done,” but it was magical just being in the same place where Shakespeare once walked.

We also visited Anne Hathaway’s cottage, where the teenaged Shakespeare courted his eight-years-older wife.  The cottage is not really the same as it was at the time, since subsequent generations of the family changed it a lot and added on.  There was an old wooden bench that our guide somewhat skeptically told us the family claims Shakespeare and Anne would have sat on.  I don’t know if they really did, but I’m choosing to believe it and say that it was extremely cool.  But it was in the gardens that I really felt I could get into the mindset of imagining Will and Anne… walking here, trying to get away from her big family…

Visiting Stratford was a dream come true!  I’d recommend the trip to any English literature geeks out there.  And next Friday, come with me to one of the cutest towns in the Cotswolds…

During our stay in the Cotswolds, hubby and I knew we had to see Blenheim Palace.  Blenheim (which is pronounced Blen-um, and if you say it phonetically you’ll get laughed at) is the historic residence of the Dukes of Marlborough.  The current Duke and his family still keep it as a residence and are there from time to time.  There were family pictures scattered around the place and it had a lived-in feel that I loved.  Our last palace experience was Versailles, and I liked Blenheim much better.  Between the crowds and the ostentation of Versailles, I was practically sprinting to get on the next train back to Paris.  But we lingered at Blenheim, and I could have lingered even longer.

What is hubby doing here?  Assessing the real estate value?

The gardens were sumptuous but not overdone.  I could picture myself sitting out here with a book and a pot of tea, soaking up that golden Cotswold sunlight.

Blenheim also has historical significance as the birthplace of one of my favorite British historic figures: Winston Churchill.  The future Prime Minister, apparently a politician from a very early age, made his appearance while his mother was at a party here.  Churchill’s mum was closely related to the Duke of Marlborough and Churchill spent much of his childhood tooling around Blenheim.  He even chose the “Temple of Diana” in the gardens here to propose to his beloved wife Clementine.  One of Churchill’s hobbies was painting – he was actually really talented; there were a number of his pieces on display in the palace – and Blenheim landscapes were his favorite art subject.  The palace contained a few rooms devoted to a small Churchill museum with letters, photos and other memorabilia.  And – the best part for a booknerd like myself – the Duke has a copy of Churchill’s four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which I read a few years ago – in his library!  It’s fair to say I was in Churchill heaven.  Yes, I realize that I’m a nerd.  No, I don’t care.

After touring the Palace and the formal gardens, hubby and I wandered through the surrounding parklands for awhile and happened on this serene little lake.  Even in October, the park was green and there were (a few) flowers in bloom.  Oh, yes, I could definitely stay here awhile.

But I didn’t stay!  We’re off on more Cotswold and Midland adventures next Friday, so check back then!

Welcome to the Cotswolds!  This is the quintessential England of rambling manor houses, sunny villages, and stone cottages with charmingly overgrown gardens.  This is storybook England.

We stayed in Stow-on-the-Wold and poked around there and the nearby village of Chipping Campden, which is as quintessential Cotswolds as they get.  And we were graced with cloudless skies, all the better to set off the golden Cotswold stone buildings.

Chipping Campden (town sign pictured above) was a prosperous town during the wool years.  In fact, wool money made the Cotswolds.  It built the houses, the gates, and the churches – which now shelter the remains of wool barons.  Even today, the fields surrounding the Cotswold villages are overrun with sheep.

J.R.R. Tolkein famously hiked through the Cotswolds and sketched the sights, including this door (below), which inspired a drawing in his Lord of the Rings series.  (Which I haven’t read – sorry, Katie – but will get to eventually.  Really.)

I could easily picture myself settling into Cotswold village life, chatting with neighbors over a cup of tea and wandering over the footpaths on sunny afternoons.  We stayed a few days, and that wasn’t near enough time to absorb the quirky charm of the region.  This is going to have to be a repeat destination!

Next Friday we leave the village for a day and tour a palace!  Check back!