Today I got the chance to go visit Blenheim Palace! Named after a town in Bavaria which was the site of John Churchill's famous battle. After he won and stopped Louis XIV's advance to conquer Europe, Queen Anne made him Lord Marlborough and gave him £240,000 a 2,800 acre park on which to build a house. And boy, what a house it is!
The sheer size of the Palace is spectacular, the outside is so big and imposing it makes one feel as though you are a fly on the wall. Of course, first you have to get to the Palace, which is accessible by what feels like a several-mile-long driveway (although it turns out it's only half a mile but arrow straight). After walking into the giant courtyard I proceeded into the house, through pillars several stories tall. I was briefed on my options and headed to the 35-40 minute tour, on which I was with a husband and wife from North Carolina! This tour was really cool, they had rooms set up from different eras of the house and you were led through by a projected tour guide. Each of the rooms had animatronic and video people; often the manikin would be facing a mirror which was actually a video screen so you could see them talking. The manikins even breathed, which was creepy, but the whole thing was really cool!!! Next I circled back outside and went on a tour of another part of the house and learned some funny stories about the family (did you know the Vanderbilt and Churchill families were related?). Anyway, the inside was beautiful! | |
After touring the interior of this gigantic house, I moved outside to go see the gardens where again, the sheer size was staggering!
| I walked around a bit, had some lunch, then decided to go explore some of the individual garden areas. After I followed one of the paths (I'm going Coast Guard, I don't do land navigation), I happened upon the "Secret Garden" which turned out to be a really cool garden bordering the massive field shown above. It was quiet and peaceful, so I took the time to play with my camera's wireless capabilities. You can set it up and remotely take pictures from your smart phone, which is very entertaining! Next I moved to the outskirts of the field and noticed a bench that the light was catching just right. I thought to myself how neat it would be if someone were sitting there, and then realized I could attempt it with my wireless setting and got one picture before the connection died (I was at least 50 feet away from it). The wind was blistering as well and blew my camera out of position so I had to go back to it anyway. Unfortunately there were a lot of tractors out (mowing the grass) and one started heading towards me so I ran for it back to the path. |
I decided to head back to the front of the Palace where I could visit the Column of Victory and the bridge. On the way I spotted a cool-looking path and figured I’d follow it and it took me down by the side of the lake. There was a neat little cottage/boat house and it was a good walk until I realized I was heading in the complete wrong direction and ended up in the middle of the giant field! After this interesting detour, I went into the courtyard and checked out the WWI exhibit (which was rather good) and then visited the gift shop. After finding out what time things closed down, I started walking towards the Column of Victory but only made it as far as the bridge (it was getting dark and the main gate through which I had to exit was going to close at 1630. At 1615 I started to walk back and looked at my bus time table to see when the next bus home would leave: 1621. I ran the whole length of the driveway and got to the bus stop with a minute to spare, but then (of course) the bus was 5 minutes late, so the run was for nought (good exercise though). | |