Daily Details: July 31

Get ready for a great blog post. Well, my writing might not be great, but I’ll try to convey how awesome today was. Our first stop today was Haddon Hall. The scenes from Pride and Prejudice where they are in the Rose and Crown Hotel were filmed there. The home was VERY different from anything I have yet seen in Europe, and I loved every bit of it! The home is a medieval home, built in the 1300s, so it has a very castle-like feel, rather than a palace-like one. The home is quite unique, because ALL of the building materials, including the stone and the wood, are local materials—nothing was brought in to complete the home so the home just perfectly blends in with its surroundings. Once again, I learned how one of our common expressions was derived. The term, “upper crust” was derived from the days when servants would bake bread. The lower half of the loaf was always covered in ash by the time it was done baking, so the loaf was sawed in half and the wealthy got the upper crust, the servants, the lower half. I thought that was fascinating! One of my favorite things was how the home had fresh floral arrangements in each room—they were BEAUTIFUL! The home has been so well-used that in some parts, the stone floors have big wells worn in them. The grand gallery--a VERY long room that had a variety of uses, including balls, reading, and exercise for women--was AMAZING! The most charming feature of it was the massive expanses of mullioned windows. The windows were all wavy—they’re hard to describe but I’ll include a picture so you can see it for yourselves. Anyway, I remembered learning about those windows in school and it was suggested that it was just because the technology for windows was not that great so they ended up wavy. At Haddon, we learned that this was an intentional design because it allowed more light into the room. I thought that was a fascinating concept! The gardens were equally charming and at the end of the trip, I enjoyed eating a scone with clotted cream and jam at the café there.

As we hopped back on the bus, our friendly little bus driver gave us some information about things we should look for at our next stop. He was adorable. I enjoyed every moment of our ride to Chatsworth. The countryside we were travelling through that day was the quintessential English countryside you see in all of the movies. Lone horses, sheep, and cows would be grazing in beautiful green pastures along the road, grassy green hills sprung up everywhere, and wildflowers were abundant. Since is was looking like it was about to rain and with me being in the beautiful countryside, I fully expected to see Marianne Dashwood coming up over the hill, just before she stumbles and meets Willoughby for the first time. Words cannot describe how much I loved looking at all of the beautiful scenery around me.

Seeing Chatsworth, aka, Mr. Darcy’s house as we turned the corner was an absolutely THRILLING sight! This was something that I have been looking forward to seeing the entire year, and I was not in the least bit disappointed. Because the weather is always so questionable here in England, it was suggested that we go through the gardens first which are extensive—the estate is comprised of 102,000 acres of land. There was a fabulous waterfall called the cascade that was like a giant staircase coming down with water flowing over it. There was also a real life maze you could go through that was cut out of hedges. There was an awesome lookout on the estate that was made out of gargantuan, irregular stones. Anyway, there were too many incredible things to be able to list them all, but suffice it to say, I was in love with the gardens. Finally, it was time to enter the house itself. The grandeur inside was absolutely DIVINE!!! What was even cooler was that we were able to take pictures inside—even pictures with flash! There were a couple of special exhibits in there about movies that have been filmed there. Of course, Pride and Prejudice was featured, but also The Duchess. They had a few of Kiera Knightly and Ralph Fiennes’ costumes on display and they were exquisite. A large portion of the house was devoted to the real Georgiana’s belongings though. It was so cool to see her real journals, letters, and the beautiful penmanship that she had. She was an avid collector and they had some of her rocks/minerals on display. There was the most gargantuan piece of quartz I’ve ever seen in my life and the biggest geode as well. Of course, I was eager to see Pride and Prejudice stuff, and my hopes were rewarded when I got to see Mr. Darcy’s bust and the awesome sculpture of the veiled woman. Walking throughout the house, I was able to see some amazing furnishings as usual, as well as a fantastic room that was completely frescoed 300 years ago! My favorite part came when we finally reached the sculpture gallery. It looks absolutely the same as it does in the movie and features all of the same sculptures and many more fantastic ones that are not featured in the film. The room is lit naturally by several skylights and the way the natural light filters in and makes the marble glow is absolutely ethereal. The floors are a black and white marble, so the whole package was one of the coolest things I have seen here. Upon reaching the end of the tour, I visited the quaint little gift shop and then picked up a pasty (pronounced pass-dee) from the little café here. I am in LOVE with pasties. They are considered a Cornish pastry, but if you get the traditional one it’s like a roast beef dinner that’s been nicely tucked into a delicious roll/puff pastry shell. They are filled with roast beef, potatoes, swede (I’m not sure what that is but it tastes like carrots), onions, and this delicious peppery gravy. Oh, how I will miss my pasties!!!

After our 2 hour train ride home, we hopped onto the tube to head over to Abbey Road. We saw the famous recording studio and took pictures of it. There are all these white columns outside of it that people write their names on to commemorate their visit here, so we left our marks too. Then of course, we took the traditional walking-across-the-crosswalk shots. I was lucky enough to catch it at a good time when there weren’t a lot of cars, but many in our group got honked at like crazy. I bet the locals here are so sick of all the tourists that are constantly holding up traffic to get their shots. Oh well. It was a fun little experience and now I can say that I’ve been there and done that. As I took the tube home, I couldn’t help singing some Beatles tunes in my head and thinking of my good friend who is a big Beatles buff.