Hampton Court Palace - Tudor to Baroque

Where to even begin. This place is huge. We started out by walking through Bushey Park to get to the palace and gardens. It's quite a walk, about 2.2 miles total from the front door of our flat. Bushey Park is expansive, lots of bikers, runners, dogs, a large fountain in the middle of a round-about:

These guys were hanging out by the fountain and kept following me. I kept telling them I had no food but they wouldn't believe me.

It was a looong walk through Bushey Park. Here I am, just inside the gates, relaxing on a bench and looking at the beautiful flowers.

 The grounds surrounding Hampton Court are open to the public. Here is a statue, in the rose garden, of a mother trying to get her child to breast-feed.

 He's not giving up without a fight.

Only ticket holders past that arch.

 Guarding the entrance.

 Beautiful stained glass in The Great Hall with Henry the VIII in the middle.

 Beautiful, over 500 years old, and expensive to maintain tapestries in the banquet hall. King Henry the VIII's Great Hall.

 A lot of the ceilings had just crazy painting on them, so pretty, so much work.

 Love the bed warming pan.

 Man with large club.

 Man with large spear.

 The closest we could get to this tranquil and immaculate garden.

 The greenhouse that holds The Great Vine. Planted in 1768 by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, it is the oldest known vine in the world and still produces 500-700 lbs of grapes each year. They are not wine grapes, instead they are sold for consumption in the Hampton Court store each August.

 Wow, this staircase. It is the entrance to King William the III's apartments.

 The King's staircase was painted by Antonio Verrio who died at Hampton Court in 1707.

 The King's Guard Chamber with a display of more than 3,000 arms, mostly muskets, pistols, bayonets and swords.

 One of many painted ceilings, this one is in the King's small bed chamber.

King William the III's stool.

Some of "the beauties of Hampton Court".

 That staircase again but this time with bride and groom. Who would you have to know, or how much would you have to spend, to be able to get married at Hampton Court?

 Hampton Court is celebrating "500 Years in a Day" and there were little timeplays all over the place. Here we see dancing in the Clock Tower Courtyard. Don and I were lucky enough to catch a 15 minute timeplay csalled "Honeymoon Troubles - Catherine of Braganza and Barbara Villiers are locked in a battle of wills." in the Queen's presense chamber.

And now the Tudor Kitchens.

 Stove.

Actual produce from the gardens.

 Real fire in massive fireplace with multiple iron prongs for holding skewers (spits?) of meat. Fake, plastic meat on skewers.

 Young boy trying to wake up wooden man (drunk?) next to a wooden woman asking for alms. His mother thought it was cute and so did we.

How tired I felt after many hours and staircases at Hampton Court. In fact, we were so tired that I had Don look up public transport on his phone and we took a bus back to Teddington rather than walk the 2 miles back through Bushey Park.