May 7: Hampton Court

Well, this day was a nice little jaunt down to the Hampton Court Palace. A beautiful 16th century palace ordered by Cardinal Wolsey who served under the famous (Or rather infamous) Henry VIII. Pictures weren't allowed of the interior of the palace but were allowed around the gardens. Hampton Court Palace also has a garden maze nearby.

The train passes by Wimbledon on the way down there. The ride is only about half an hour from London, a pretty quick ride.










The palace lies on the bank of the Thames and is built on some fantastically beautiful parkland. Although I must say that as much as I love and orderly garden, having everything in perfect straight lines isn't very natural.








There was some sort of restoration work going on when we were there but enough was visible to see how lovely the buildings are.





This is the Clock Courtyard, so called because of the clock that was built on the opposing wall, which is a technical marvel. It shows the phases of the moon, what constellations are currently visible, and some other info which I have forgotten. Oh it also tells the time like all good clocks do, about all it doesn't do is bake cookies.














At this point we entered the palace. The palace is separated in to several distinct sections, Henry VIII's section, the apartments of King William II and Queen Mary II, King George II's apartments as well as the great kitchens and other halls. All of them house countless works of art, beyond the rooms themselves. All of them have chambers where courtiers waited surrounded by the King's guard and an inner chamber where the King received visitors and then there were their private rooms.

The gardens outside the palace are exquisitely beautiful. This fountain has been in the palace for almost 500 years.




Here are some pics of the outside gardens
















I think I'll post most of the pics of the gardens, they're just that lovely.

























And here we come to the maze. This was quite a lot of fun, Bink took a couple of wrong turns (no surprises there)











And here we have the centre of the maze and big metal plaque and a spinning metal needle. An express exit was off to one side so you didn't have to go back through the maze, and get lost again.

After the maze we took a fairly leisurely stroll through the remaining gardens, not too leisurely since it was getting close to closing time.

I'll put up some of the nicer ones now. I took way too many pics ;p




















































And with that I will leave my picture insanity. I have heaps more pics, nice ones silly ones etc etc. I'll put links to them on the main page.