Daily Details: July 28

Today was a nice day—more laid back than any of our group days have been so far in England. Basically, we just went to Blenheim Palace, a grand country estate where the Dukes of England have lived for centuries. Blenheim was actually the birth place of Winston Churchill as well. The first thing we did upon arriving was tour the gardens. The gardens are extensive, as the estate sits on 22,000 acres of land. In addition to the manicured gardens, there was the most massive expanse of pure lawn that I have ever seen in my life. It was absolutely spectacular! We couldn’t resist taking off our shoes and walking on the lawn, and it was the best sensation I’ve experienced in quite some time. This is not grass like we have in the states—it’s short and fuzzy and feels like natural carpet under your feet. After resting on the lawn for a while, we headed towards the “Secret Garden”. It had the widest variety of plants all intermingled with each other—everything from a palm and bamboo trees to Japanese maples. Everything was splendidly kept, and I enjoyed hearing the little babbling brooks and seeing the small waterfalls, gazebos, and benches that were tucked away here and there. We then headed over to the rose gardens, another glorious site.

The inside of the house was absolutely divine—it’s one of my favorite estates we’ve been to, and probably second next to Vaux. It was definitely lavish, but understated and tasteful. More so than the other homes we’ve been to. Just like yesterday at Wilton House, pictures of the current family adorned some of the rooms, making it feel more like a home than a museum. One of my favorite things about this home were the clocks that were present in every room—they were some of the most beautiful clocks I have yet seen and believe me, I’ve seen MANY a clock on this trip! My favorite room was the dining room—it had the classic fairytale dining table that stretches across the room for tens of feet, and ceilings that were at least 30’ high. The chairs had a beautiful red upholstery, the ceilings and domed roof were painted with murals, and the floor was a beautiful black and white marble.

Being pretty exhausted, we didn’t actually go and see the campus of Oxford, but the town is what we strolled through on our way back to the train station to head back to London. It was a beautifully quaint town, and although we didn’t see a whole lot of it walking, our double-decker bus ride to and from Blenheim allowed us to see quite a bit of what Oxford had to offer. I love the days that we go to the country because people are SO friendly. A young man sitting in front of us on the bus ride back to the train station heard us discussing some places we might like to see and offered his opinion, giving us great ideas of places to go. Then he continued to chat with us, asking about how we were liking England, music, and all sorts of things.

Well, I guess that about sums up the day—like I said, it was quite laid back. I came home, made myself a sandwich, did my laundry and popped into the Tesco—little mini supermarkets all over the place here. Boy, am I going to miss those when I’m back in the states!