Day 19 - Oxford and Blenheim Palace

May 20, 2008

This morning we slept in a bit in our luxurious Travelodge room; didn't want to waste it! We then got ready and packed our things. Around 9:30am we were out the door and on the road.

Today was another big driving day for us, although not as bad as yesterday. Only 4 hours instead of 6. I was hungry so we stop at a service station pretty quickly to grab some breakfast. We got 2 raspberry muffins, yogurt, and a banana and we ate it inside.

Then we got back on the road. The drive was nice although not nearly as scenic as some of our other drives as we were mainly on the M6 (a big motorway). I slept as usual for a good part of it as well.

We decided we would try to squeze in Blenheim Palace before it closed at 5:30pm so that we wouldn't have to do it the next day with Windsor Castle. We made it to the Palace around 2:15pm so we had about 3 hours to enjoy it.

We entered the grounds and we couldn't believe how big they were. It didn't even feel like you were right next to a town once you entered the gates. It had its own man-made river and island plus lots of green grass, trees, and flowers. It was enormous.

We found a place to park and walked up to buy our tickets to go inside. (They cost £16.50 per person - kind of expensive.) We walked through the front gate and couldn't believe how big this house is - no wonder it's called a Palace!

We found our way to the front door and then realized that they let all the visitors come through the side entrance and leave the grand entrance directly in front of the front door for the occupants of the house.

We went inside and were instructed on where to go. A tour was starting in about 15 minutes and we could tour the section about Winston Churchill in the rooms to our right before our tour began (for those who didn't already know, Churchill is a decendant of the Duke of Marlborourgh - the family who owns the Palace - and was born in that house).

We walked through the rooms and saw pictures of Winston and his family, letters, trinkets, and information about him. We also saw the room he was born in and one of his baby night gowns. Then we waited in a little side room for the tour to begin. In this room there were portraits of the different Dukes of Marlborourgh and one large portrait of the first Duke and his family. They were all pretty big and I really liked looking at these and trying to envision what each person was like.

After a bit, our tour guide came and started telling us about the different Dukes and their families. He then took us around to all the public state apartments and explained various things in each room. Each room was also filled with portraits all over the walls and I liked looking at these a lot. There were also beautiful tapestries on the walls that were made specifically for a certain spot on a wall in each room. To me, the tapestries were inplace of wall paper and were really neat. The 1st Duke had these commissioned and were of different important battles he had led in the early 1700s.

When we were done with this part of the tour, we were led outside and had to go around to the front of the house to start a second audio tour if we wanted to. So we did. We had to wait a little bit because the audio was on a timer.

They then let us go up the stairs and start this tour. This tour was quite different and, honestly, a little weird. They had reconstructed scenes from the different time periods with the different Dukes to teach you a little more about each. They used anamatronics for part of it and the "ghost" of the lady in waiting to the first Duchess to help tell the story. She was a hollogram type thing that they projected onto the walls on the different rooms you entered. Eventually you were brought to the present day and there was a short video from the present Duke. We kind of chuckled under our breath when he was done welcoming us to his house as the way he spoke was just so stuffy and you could tell that he had been raised to speak in that tone and in that way.

Gretchen had told us that there was a hedge maze on the grounds at this place so we wanted to make sure we had time to do that. It was nearing 5:00pm so we walked as quickly as we could to the area with the maze. We got to it and it wasn't as big as others I've been in but we both love mazes and had to do it.

When we started it, it wasn't very challenging. The only way you could go was the right way - there were no deadends or ways that took you far away from the direction you were supposed to be going so we were afraid that this wasn't going to be a very exciting maze.

There was a staircase that you had to climb to a platform that overlooked the maze and we went up there. We we came down the other side there were two ways we could go so we thought we would each take a different path to see where each led. Well, even though it wasn't a very big maze, the furthur I could tell I was away from Miah as the maze ended up being a bit more challenging with multiple paths than originally thought, the more scared I got so I was very happy when we finally bumped into each other. We then decided to stay together the rest of the time to find the center, the goal.

We decided to do take turns leading the other through the maze as we both like to find the right way to go (we did this in the Dole Pineapple maze in Hawaii and this worked out well for us as one person leads until they hit a deadend and then we turn around and let the other person lead until they hit a deadend). Miah started and then not too long later it was my turn. I got us to the other side where the second set of stairs and platform were.

We got up on top and saw that we weren't too far away from the center (you could reach the exit from the center of the maze). I let Miah lead us the rest of the way and it was actually a good thing too because I would have gone a different way once we got back down into the maze and he was able to find the path to the center with the way he chose.

We then completed the maze and walked out. Directly next to the maze was a little put put area. So we picked up some clubs and balls and played the 9 hole course. Miah beat me by 2 strokes but then he let me do one bonus hole and I ended up beating him by one or two strokes so we both won!

By that time it was 5:30pm and the maze area was closing so we headed back the long path to our car. Once back in the car, we put in Oxford as our next destination and started heading there. As we were entering the city, I checked to see what time we told our next B&B what time we would be arriving and I had told them between 6:00pm and 6:30pm and it was now around 6:15pm so I called to tell them we would be a little later.

(That was one hard thing to figure out was what time to tell the B&Bs to expect our arrival. We had no clue how late we would be out and didn't want to say too late of a time to keep them up late but not too early either to miss out on doing things. It was especially hard as it stayed light out so late so we were able to do things later than we had anticipated. Gennerally, telling them between 7 and 8 in the evening was a safe bet and it allowed us to settle in and get to bed at a reasonable hour.)

We then found some close parking to walk to our dinner destination: Pizza Hut. We decided to go their as we knew the prices and what we would get for the prices, especially after Jeremiah's experience the night before with his Chili Con Carne slop we weren't really in the mood to take chances again.

We ordered a pepperoni and black olive medium pizza and a chicken caesar side salad. The food was good and filling and the service was okay. We then walked around the area we were in for a little bit. We found a telephone booth and had been meaning to call my parents and Jeremiah's grandparents for the last few days but every time we had thought about it, it was too early in the morning for them and when it would have been a good time for them, we forgot to do it. So since we had remembered at last, we thought this would be a good opportunity (plus the booth was relatively clean and it even had an automatic air freshener in it!)

Jeremiah first called his grandparents and they were tickled to get the call. Then I called my dad at work and my mom on her cell. It was nice being able to talk to all of them.

Then we walked around a bit more, found some interesting gargolye-looking things, and took some pictures. It was starting to get late and we didn't want to arrive too late at the B&B so we headed back to the car to leave for the night.

The B&B wasn't too far away and we found it pretty easily, with the GPS of course. We were surprised that this guesthouse was bigger than we had remembered from the pictures online. It was a very nice looking place.

We were shown to our room which was very comfortable and clean and it had the biggest bathroom of our trip thus far. We felt really good in their and thought it was a great end to our B&Bs for the trip. The guesthouse had a common area for the guests and even had a pool/snooker table in it. We thought about playing but there were some others already on it.

So we turned on the TV and Jeremiah reminded me that there was a show on that I wanted to watch that started at 9:00pm and it was now almost 9:30pm. It was a show about a couple who spends a week in a different time period eating food, wearing clothes, and doing activities of that time period. This week was the 1940s.

The couple had to go through physical tests before and after the week to see how the food of that day affected their bodies. Overall, they eat were healthier, I believe. Mainly, I think, because there were not the little luxuries of candy and sweets around for you to get fat on. It was an interesting show and I would like to watch more of it.

We then got ready for bed and fell asleep in a very comfortable bed.

Until tomorrow!
S&J