I have decided that you can't move around London without tripping over a palace - and pubs. They all have their own magnificance and their own stories and so do the palaces!! Hampton Court Palace is the last of the palaces on our list of 'must sees', we have enough now, and we saved the best till last. This one offered us a double whammy; the old tudor palace of King Henry VIII fame and a newer Georgian palace for joint sovereigns William and Mary. And if that wasn't enough it has fantastic gardens including the infamous maze.
We started in King Henry's section with a tour of his kitchens complete with smells and fake meat - yuk! But it had the required effect of taking us back in time. The tour of the kitchens included a wine cellar which once held ale, cider and wine - 600 people twice a day ate and drank in this palace!!! The remainder of the Tudor Palace was a bit bland to look at, but the atmosphere and the history made up for this. I walked along a corridor that King Henry VIII would have walked along - wow!!
In contrast the Georgian Palace was magnificent with painted ceilings and amazing art work. There were two main apartments to see here -William III apartments and Mary II apartments - both amazingly colourful. Both apartments had a series of rooms and the more important the visitor the further into the seris of rooms you would be allowed to enter.
We finished the day with a stroll around the magnificent gardens!! I really enjoyed that modern day families were joyously running around the gardens of a 500 year old palace. Amazing! This place was definitely haunted and we have some amazing orb photos - but you will have to read all about that in my other Blog - From the Diary of a Medium!
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