Hampton Court Palace

The sunlight now is fleeting.  I try and make the most of it.  

At least the dark, damp days means I've been staying closer to home.  It's hard to hike or justify a trip out of the city when you'll be seeing nothing but inky darkness for the lot of it.  Time to catch up on movies and see what's been happening in London while I was out becoming a hill-person.  

I took a trip out to Hampton Court Palace.  Looking back on the past year, I decided it needed a bit of royal infusion and I searched for an appropriate palatial fix.  Hampton Court Palace in Surrey fit the bill nicely. 

It's not that far out of London and right on the Thames, meaning I could knock another section of the Thames path.

The storied history of the palace fills books.  The money embezzled by Cardinal Woolsey kicked off the building of this imposing mansion.  Once he fell out of favor, it was "gifted" to Henry VIII, who utilized it for his court.  It was passed down to the Stuarts, and Queen Anne took it upon herself to build an elegant addition, and then it became the main home of the Hanoverian kings.

A lot of my local friends told me they hadn't been since grade school- apparently this is very popular with school trips.  There was quite a production of people in Tudor dress and elegant Georgian getups.  

And really.  This was one of the more fantastic palaces I've ever visited.  The Georgian wing rivaled Versailles as far as a gilded casa, and they had lots of information to share.

Oh, and costumes!  You can dress up to get into the spirit.

For its size and status, I don't think this was huge on the tourist hit-list.  Yeah, there were people there, but it wasn't crowded at all, and I was able to take a leisurely stroll through each wing unhurried and unharried.  

The best thing I learned:

The Tudor dining hall was most impressive.

The most interesting bit was the nearby Tudor kitchens and wine cellars.  To feed the court was a production, and the king would have to move from castle to castle based on the fact that his court would have stripped the countryside of bare of anything edible if they stuck around too long.

This was the "refrigerator", a narrow and shady corridor that kept cold year-round...and it was wintry for a minute....

But the kitchens were truly spectacular, with loads of research into the vessels and methods of the tudor court cooks.  The rich meat-heavy diet was a recipe for gout that was so prevalent in the upper classes.  Just because you can afford to eat like a king doesn't mean you should.  

Oh, and I learned all about pies.  Originally, pies were just a cooking vessel as they didn't really have proper cookware for them.  It was a dough made from flour and water, and filled with meat and stew.  You didn't eat the crust- you unlidded it ate ate the good stuff and threw away the rest.

The later wings of the palace were much more elegant and Georgian in style.  But ah, the gardens....

In the waning afternoon light, I took a relaxed autumnal stroll through the rather famous hedge maze, took a peek at the original REAL tennis court.

You can pay membership and play on the same court that Henry VIII showed his prowess.  Although...you have to serve off the wall and there seemed to be some other interesting rules.

Outside the garden gates, there is a deer park- a holdover for when the King would go out hunting in the nearby countryside.

I walked through the park and connected back to the Thames, and took a long meandering walk back to the train station.

Some wild-growing hops did not go unnoticed or unpicked.

Go if you get a chance- it was a quick 25 minute train ride out of Victoria Station (but don't count on it on Sundays) and a perfectly awesome way to eat up some or all daylight hours.

A lovely Walk in Oxfordshire

One small problem with trying to walk a National Trail in summer is your accommodation trailside is kind of slim.  As in, book a few weeks ahead.  Or a month.  Or several months.   Or be prepared to sleep outside.

With that in mind, I took the train to Goring and Strealey station in Oxfordshire to walk a bit of the Thames path and some surrounding countryside up by Goring Gap.  A day trip of sorts, with my trusty book of walks in hand.

This area was moneyed.  Thameside mansions and estates were the name of game here.

And houseboats!  I do love a houseboat.

It was great birdwatching- I probably saw a dozen red kites circling lazily along the river, dozens of songbirds and a huge variety of water foul.

It was a warm, muggy day, but the trail followed an old towpath and was mostly treed in now, so the shade was nice.  

You still see odd artifacts of fortification protecting old railroad bridges and hillsides here, like this pillbox.

But mostly, gorgeous old trees.  You could tell the area was moneyed because there was less agriculture and livestock, more horses.  And not shabby ones either.

The trail ascends steeply through Goring Gap- a hillside that glacier melt cut through during the last ice age.  It's the one hill on the trail, and it was steep enough for mountain bikers to be walking their bikes down the hill.  Supposedly it's a gorgeous view from the top, but the foliage was so thick you couldn't even get a glimpse.

From there, we left the Thames and started walking through the countryside.

Our book had told us about a Pub a half mile off the trail.  We made for it but we were horrified to learn that it was still called the "King Charles Head", but it was now a private residence.  Herein lies the problem using a 10 year old guide book.

We walked into the tiny hamlet of Mapledurham.  I was looking forward to sitting and grabbing a cold drink in the cafe, but then I found out that just walking around the town and going to the cafe was going to put me out a few quid.  Seriously!

It's an estate on the Thames with a long history of harbouring Catholics in times of anti-catholic sentiment.  A beautiful little 13th-century church, a mansion, and a watermill comprised the estate.  

Kenneth Grahame supposedly based Toad Hall here in Wind in the Willows.  He's a local folk hero and he's buried nearby.

But, lo!  What was this commotion in a nearby field?

Doggy Agility!

We hit it at the tail-end (ahem) and only saw a couple dogs run through, but they had fresh water taps and a lovely ice cream vendor and a Thameside bank to plant one-selves.

Take that, Mister Toad!

While we carry plenty of water, we're careful to ration out what we have for the day until we hit a tap, and then I realize how friggin thirsty I was as I downed a litre.

Much, much better.  Also, I didn't realize I would be going through bottles of SPF 50 here, but I have.

Back on the trail, more farmland.  Really fancy horse farms.

I came across this little farmstand and bought some garlic on the honor system, since they were out of strawberries and garlic seemed to be the most portable option.

And then- an huge alpaca farm.  Hundreds of freshly shorn alpacas of all colors dotting the hillsides.

Finally, we made our exit at Pangbourne.  There's a bridge across the Thames here that is currently just a footbridge, as they are replacing the Whitechurch bridge.  We had a bit of a panic when we saw the construction barges and no discernible way to get across, as it would have been another 4 miles back to Goring Streatley Station.  Happily, they had a pedestrian walk way set up across the river.

We found a fancy pub on the riverside called The Swan.  Although the pub itself was ancient, it was a conglomerate-owned renovated place, but ofttimes that means the food is a bit better than normal, and this place was fairly good.  We ended up sitting riverside, drinking a bottle of wine and eating our Sunday dinner here.  The walk, although fairly flat, was a pretty challenging 12 miles of sunny warm hiking.

A lovely way to spend a Sunday.