Hampton Court Palace

Ever since I did a bit of research for the Tower of London, I put Hampton Court Palace on my list as one of those places I needed to visit before leaving this place. Why? It's a fairly unknown tourist attraction when compared to Big Ben, The Eye and all the other London-y stuff. However, this palace is the former residence of Henry VIII and having been brought up in one of the youngest countries, it still bewilders me that "Wow! I'm in a really old palace! Wow! I'm where that big, fat, orange-bearded English King with the 6 wives once lived!" Relatively speaking, 500 years is not all that long ago but yeah, I'm fascinated by old stuff in general. Geek.

We managed to suck Kt into coming with us. Well I guess it was more like she didn't have anything else to do today and decided to give 'culture' a go. Lunch was planned for Borough, which may have swayed her too.

Moo being a cannibal.

The best summery conditions were turned on for us and after a short-ish train ride to the outskirts of London we reached our destination. We were all a bit surprised at how quaint and picturesque the whole Hampton Court area was. Where was the smog? Where were the crowds? Where were the knife stabbing gangs? A walk over a stone bridge brought us to the path of the palace. It's not terribly statuesque or pretty but it has the red-brick charm.

Must...do.... audio tour.... touristy stuff......

The fake pies in the kitchen. The fake pot full of fake pie filling.

The palace gardens are free to public entry and were so well manicured, just the perfect place for a picnic or a book reading session. If they had wifi, I could sit here and blog too.

The gardens are meant to have some similarity to those in Versailles. We'll see when I go next week! Look! Triangle trees!

My tulip patch.

Oh that's right. One of the drawing cards to Hampton Court Palace was the garden maze. Don't go out of your way for it. I wanted to go cos it was a childhood fantasy.

Moo and Kt making their way through. Moo attempting to get to the centre more quickly.

We're at the centre! Moo and I doing impersonations of each other.

An ice cream cart was conveniently located outside the palace grounds on the way to the station. You betcha we stopped for ice cream treats.

Frozen Ribena. Really, I could just make that at home. But if it's in a tube, alright, I'll give you some cash.

Kt couldn't even stop for one last pose with the Thames without Frozen Ribena.

It's definitely not an essential on the London To-Do list but if you don't mind the travel, want to see a different side of London or just feel like being 'English', pop down to Hampton Court Palace. I wish I had a dog; I would walk it here!