On Monday we went to the best place in the world, Blenheim Palace. I want to make a disclaimer before I start. If Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice are things that annoy you or you do not want to hear talked about, I apologize. I will mention it a few times, because it reminded me of them so much. Here is one of the big entrances to Blenheim Palace. It had a huge courtyard in the middle of this entrance area.
The whole place was just magical. Here is one of the ceilings in there. Several of them were so pretty, like this one, and several were ornate with REAL gold embroidered in it. They had several statues and art lined out through the house (similarly to Mr. Darcy, who had several statues, like the one of himself, in his home).
Big note on Blenheim Palace: Winston Churchill was born here. They walked us through a museum they had to honor him and several of his achievements.
Below is a picture of him on the right, with his mother. She was American and our tour guide made some snarky comment about that. She was very funny. She would make a really funny joke and then move onto the next room nonchalantly. Best tour guide I've had, I can't even tell you all the stuff I want to that she said.
This is the room where Winston Churchill was born. He didn't live in Blenheim Palace himself but he loved to spend time with his family there. Something really interesting is that the paintings in the back of the room were painted by Winston Churchill. I didn't know this about him, but apparently he was somewhat of an artist. Pretty cool.
Below: They had so many reading and writing rooms. There is a green reading room and a red reading room. Lots of reading going on in this place. There was lots of cool history in these rooms with the paintings but I couldn't do as well as our awesome tour guide in re-explaining them.
This was such an interesting story. On the right is the 9th Duke of Marlbrough I think, who was Duke when their royal family became basically broke. The past couple of generations had poorly run the place and spent all the money they had foolishly without keeping the place up. To fix this and keep up their lifestyle they needed money. Insert the American Vanderbilt family. At 18, Cornelius Vanderbilt was forced by her mother to marry the Duke of Marlbrough because he needed her vast wealth and her family wanted the title. She HATED it there. This picture on the right is particularly funny because he was 5'6 and she was 6' tall. So they painted him on a step so he wouldn't look so short. The tour guide talked about Cornelius Vanderbilt as a great influence and leader. Cornelius and the Duke eventually split up and she went on to to do great work for charities and huge social causes. Pretty cool lady I thought.
Now this picture I honestly don't remember much about; like his name, title or significance. But I included it because the tour guide said that he was very proud of his legs, which you can tell in this picture. The clothes he was wearing aren't even from the right time period but he continued to wear them because he liked the way his legs looked so much. Pretty amusing.
The Duke of Marlbrough, John Churchill, was an interesting person. He had several tapestries made out (like the one on the left) lined up in all these reading and writing rooms of some great war victories he had. They were in such great detail that not only was he prominent in them, but whole towns and battle scenes were printed out on these tapestries with what they looked like during that battle. They are like a carpet of history. Over 300 years old, most of them.
This is about the middle of the palace and it is their grand dining room. They have their own small dining room in their private quarters, but this is where they go when they have more than 18 guests. On Christmas day, they have their dinners here. I would love to sit in on that celebration!! In the bag is a HUGE centerpiece. like a couple hundred pounds of pure silver I think. It really has no purpose but our tour guide told us about how Consuela Vanderbilt (who loathed her husband) would make sure it was between the two of them at dinner. He apparently was a slow eater and she couldn't stand to watch him take so long. Also, she would have time to knit while he ate meals.
This was what some of the walls of the dining room looked like. The story about these were interesting. Sarah Churchill, who was the wife of the great John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlbrough, was a funny lady. She was very tight and had trouble letting go of her money (I understand that, especially lately). Anyway, she wanted a painter for this room and a British one was asking 1000 pounds. She thought that was ridiculous and got a French painter to do it for 500. A bargain shopper. I didn't put the picture, but the French painter painted himself in the paintings too. The paintings represented all the races of the world coming together. It apparently meant no more war, but all peace between all people. Insert our tour guides joke about how well that idea worked out. She was funny, as mentioned.
This is a statue of Queen Ann. (Also our tour guide on the right, who was great, if I haven't said yet). Queen Ann had a sad sad life. She was loved by the people but she had a rough personal life. In their earlier years, Queen Ann and Sarah Churchill, who I talked about, were best friends. It was because of their relationship that the Churchill's were given the land to build Blenheim palace on by the queen. Its a long story, but they had a huge falling out and I mentioned how unsatisfactory Sarah Churchill could be. So when Queen Ann died, they were on bad terms because Sarah was stubborn. When the queen died, Sarah felt awful, and had this beautiful statue of her built.
I may be wrong on this, but I think our tour guide said that Blenheim Palace was where Queen Elizabeth stayed until she found out that Queen Mary had died and she would become queen. It had so much history here that I can't keep it all straight but it was so interesting.
There is probably no way that this can be read, but it was still very cool. Above is all the gowns that the Dukes would wear to coronations, weddings, etc. and even what the footman wore. That one ladies' dress looks like Mrs. Clause's outfit, people were saying.
Okay so I normally insert a lot of commentary, which generally is okay, but in this situation the pictures speak for themselves. I will make them X-Large so you can enjoy. The awesome thing about Blenheim was that it wasn't just the palace part; there were sooo many gardens and you could walk easily for a couple of miles with every single thing you saw just beautiful. I will put random captions but in general the pictures are enough I think.
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| This is the back yard of Blenheim. There was a water way and we didn't go to it, but I am pretty sure a huge maze close by. I can't get over how much I love this picture and place. |
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| Walk down a couple of steps and this is the back yard to the back yard of Blenheim palace. It was huge, and there was a giant lake behind it if that wasn't enough beauty for ya. The picture of the lake I took below... |
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| Just another view of the back yard. Okay Pride and Prejudice was through my mind through this entire thing. I don't know if you can see it, but up the stairs there is the perfect set up for the scene between Darcy and Elizabeth after she visits his house. I felt like I was there. Bre and I almost did a reenactment on video but we got distracted. |
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| No, this lilypad is not from my Desktop wallpaper. |
They had a whole beautiful rose garden that wasn't completely in bloom. Another reason that I just have to go back. Well here is one of the flowers that was bloomed that was so beautiful. It had so many roses in different colors. If it had been in bloom I can't even imagine. I think it would have been one of mom's favorite places.
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| Okay sorry but I am going to mention Downton Abbey again. Continue if it does not apply to you: This reminded me of the scene where Mathew proposes to Mary and it is snowing outside. I don't know I was probably really stretching it but these British shows kept coming to mind. I might have just thought, because it is all I've seen as far as palaces go that I would equate it with everything British I have ever seen, but oh well. It kept me entertained. Isn't it beautiful?! |
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| This was our attempt at a self-timed picture on my camera. No one came along so we stacked our purses up and gave it a try. We are larger than the castle. Anyway we got a better one later but I still wanted to include this one. So cool! |
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| Yes I know. I was about to leave and even on the way I saw this beautiful place. I didn't get to go but if you go past the bridge there are lots of sheep and green grass you can hang by. Another HUGE note: on our walk out the gate the Duke drove right beside us! Well, we didn't realize who he was but a British woman pointed him out to us. Our professor's wife, Mrs. Stewart, luckily got a picture of him getting out of the car! |
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We walked through the town Woodstock to get back and I could not handle how great it was. Like on every Jane Austen book or movie, you have the families with a lot of money that look over their estates. Well thats what this place felt like: a Jane Austen book. This looks like what a parsonage or an estate house looked like. I think I loved Blenheim so much because it was like the books I read and the movies I watched came to life. My Typical English Experience.
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