12 June 2011
Another breakfast with the United Nations (full up dining room today) and off to the tube to Oxford Circus where we changed to the Victoria Line and headed to Vauxhall. We met Marie & Damien at the tube station there and then hopped on the train to Hampton Court.
Note – we are on level 4 of this hotel and decided to use the stairs rather than the lift. There are 89 very steep stairs from our floor to the ground floor – there are even more stairs down to breakfast in the basement. We have only climbed up once as it is quite a feat!

Hampton Court palace was home to Henry VIII and following his death to Mary 11 and later William 111. It was originally owned by Cardinal Wolsey who gifted it to Henry and his new wife Kathryn of Aragon. It is an amazing place – very grand with sweeping staircases to Henry’s and Mary’s apartments. The walls are frescoed and many of the ceilings painted. The tapestries are original and were made by men! Some of them were as big as an entire wall! They were made in sections and put together to form huge pictures. The Grand Hall is around 30 feet high and all interior floors, doors and bannisters made of Oak.

Also on display were a number of original paintings, one in particular of Henry with Jane Seymour and a couple of his previous wives. The art work is owned by the Queen and on loan to the trust that runs the historic royal palaces. The entire operation depends on charitable support. The palace is more than 500 years old!

There were actors in period dress performing at different venues throughout the palace and this was very entertaining. Katherine Howard spoke to the audience about the forthcoming wedding of her niece Ann Boelyn to the King while in another scene Ann was meeting secretly with her lover and trying to avoid her Aunt's prying eyes.

Unfortunately today was wet and cold so we did lots of hopping across puddles and racing for cover but we managed to fit lots in to our time at the palace and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Cost to get in was 13.50pounds each.