Hampton Court

I’ve got to get cracking here, or I’ll never finish blogging about our summer.

On August 4th, Katya was supposed to be at Twickham Studios outside of central London, for a 3 pm audition. I’ll just briefly tell you at this point that it was a movie interview/audition for the upcoming movie “Genius” that will be filmed at the end of November in London. They were looking for five girls with genuine American accent to play Colin Firth’s (yes! Colin Firth!) daughters. So we sent in Katya’s picture, a little paragraph about her and got an interview date. Since it was a bit of a drive from our house, we wanted to combine the interview with another outing with Grandma. I looked over Google Maps and realized that Hampton Court, another place on my bucket list, was only 20 min away from the studios. Thus, we decided to go explore this place.

Hampton Court is very popular with tourists. It’s one of those do-not-miss places for daytrips from London. The history of Hampton Court goes far into the 15th century. But to most people, this place associates significantly with Henry VIII. And there is no wonder why. After moving into the palace, this is where he and his advisors sent the first letter threatening a break with Rome; this is where his third wife, Queen Jane Seymour, gave birth to Prince Edward; and where his divorce from Anne of Cleves was signed; and where he married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard (only to interrogate and keep her under house arrest later); and this is where he married his sixths and final wife, Kateryn Parr. Phew…that’s a lot of wives to keep track of.

-

Later on, in 1604, the Hampton Court Conference was called by King James I here. That’s when the King James Bible was commissioned. In the late 17th century, Christopher Wren, famous architect around here, demolished part of the Tudor palace and began building a new one for King William III and Queen Mary I. After about a hundred years, King George III abandoned the palace, and it was divided into apartments. Finally, Queen Victoria opened up the apartments and the gardens to the public free of charge. And that’s how we can see them here today…except we have to pay.

We had brought a packed lunch with us and ate it in a serene surrounding of a rose garden. Then we walked over to the palace and found some random people resting by the fountain.

The kids decided to help their new friend who was not feeling well in the courtyard.

Then we got our audio guides and explored rooms depicting life in the palace from centuries ago.

Preparing meat.

Yummy pies (the savory kind).

Grandma in the kitchen.

 

Learning about all the amazing ways that the their ovens and stoves worked.

We also went through the state apartments, but didn’t get any pictures. The apartments were decorated nicely—great hall was very posh, but nothing like any of the German castles we had seen.

The gardens were beautiful. Grandma even found a palm tree.

We had a bit of time to spare, so after getting lost at the world’s oldest maze (it was not a huge one though), the kids stopped by the kids’ activity center, where they made some cool helmets/hats from Henry VIII’s era. And of course, I have no pictures of those…

My verdict—it’s a pretty neat place to learn a major part of English history. Beautiful surroundings and peaceful atmosphere.

Will we come back here? Probably not. Unless I make up another word for “palace” and “castle”, the kids will revolt-haha.