I think someone upstairs was punishing me this morning for bragging about the weather here in old London town. Opening the window at 5:30am this morning I was greeted by a grey and gloomy day.
Going down to breakfast at 6:30am, I was not happy to see that a group of Japanese school kids had arrived - and eventually took over the breakfast restaurant. So far, it was NOT looking like this day was going to go my way.
I was pleasantly proved wrong when we ended up having another terrific guide for our tour of Blenheim Palace. He was extremely knowledgeable of the areas we were covering and even had some funny anecdotes to lighten up the mood a bit.
This group was not as friendly as my group yesterday, but there was a young Canadian girl that was on her own that attached herself to me - we were the only single female travellers.
First stop on this tour was the wonderful Blenheim Palace. This 300 year old palace was the birthplace and home of Sir Winston Churchill. How the other half lived! - and still do as the present Duke and his family still live in the private wing of the Palace. In fact, the Duke's flag was flying high which meant that he was at home during our visit. Unfortunately, he didn't come out and say "Hi". Also, like St Paul's Cathedral, photography was not allowed so I had to store everything to memory.The great thing about visiting this Palace was that I learnt more about Winston than just the fact that he was Prime Minister. I was quite surprised that he stemmed from Royal blood and was related to the late Princess Diana. To me, he was always the man that reminded me of W.C. Fields!
Not only is the internal rooms of the Palace simply stunning, the gardens are also spectacular - although I only got to see one part of them because we just ran out of time.
Next stop - the small town of Burford in the Cotswold where we stopped at the Cotswold Arms for lunch. An American couple from Pittsburg, John and Krista, asked me to join them at their table - everyone else stuck to their own groups and I was going to have to sit on my own. Great, chatty and not at all annoying Americans. The Canadian girl (never did catch her name) did not pay for lunch and so didn't join us.After we finished lunch, we had a quick 20 minutes to explore the town. I ended up not walking far and spent nearly the whole time in the church. It was just fascinating - my church thing. There was a tomb towards the back of the church where Sir Lawrence Tanfield and his wife Elizabeth are buried. And, just as I was leaving, something underneath the tomb attracted my attention. It turned out to be a skeleton. Don't know if it was Lawrence or Elizabeth. Some parts of the church date back to the 1400's and some from the 1800's.
Then it was over to another small Cotswold town - Bourton-On-The-Water and, when I say small, I mean really small. You can walk around the centre of town in no more than 5 minutes. It is a pretty and tranquil town with a river running through it, ducks paddling peacefully along and a pub called The Old New Inn. The sun decided to come out just as we arrived and there were plenty of people out sitting by the river and relaxing. A gorgeous little English town.
Our final stop was in the town of Stow. This was a slightly bigger town than Bourton but we only had about 20 minutes to walk around in the gorgeous sunshine that had decided to stick around. The funniest thing I saw was an Indian woman walking around - in a full length fur coat! It was hard for me not to laugh - so I managed to hold back until she had passed by. There we were walking around in our short sleeves and she was walking around in that!Then it was time to go back to the big smoke. Now that the sun was out, the rolling yellow Canola fields made a spectacular contrast against the rolling green fields of the English countryside.
Back in town, I was dropped off at a place called The Marble Arch, across the road to Hyde Park. The Marble Arch was, apparently, the original gates to Buckingham Palace. Took many pictures then crossed the road to Hyde Park at Speakers' Corner.Walked the wrong way for 10 minutes then corrected myself and cut across Hyde Park heading toward Wellington Arch - Hyde Park Corner in Knightsbridge. I must've looked like I knew where I was going because two German Tourists asked me for directions.
Took several photos of the Wellington Arch and the surrounding War Memorials surrounding it. Wasn't very impressed with the Australian memorial though, compared to the other ones. It's a modern structure compared to the surrounding ones.That's when I encountered crazy cyclists. I thought Hyde Park was bad but it's got nothing on what I experienced at the Wellington Arch. I had to be very careful not to get run over - they zoom past at either side of the arch just as fast as cars, if not faster.
Then it was 7pm and time for me to go back to the hotel via a 20 minute walk down Edgware Road with a pit stop at my local Tesco where the lady at the register was kind enough to help me with the English money - and didn't rip me off.
Tomorrow, off to Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury. Fingers crossed that the rain they're predicting doesn't stick around long.
