Blenheim Palace

Trip to Blenheim Palace today.

After writing the blog on "Ice" this morning, I was interested to see this on the way to the bus station:

Now many Australians will not understand what this is. It's salt. "Why?" you ask. To melt the ice and stop people from falling onto their asses. It was all the way up the stairs and along the bridge to the train station.

The bus was a double decker bus and, of course, I sat up top. Much to my surprise, no one else sat up top with me. What I don't understand is how these buses manoeuvre their way around the narrow streets. Not only in town, but in the small country towns. It feels like the buses and cars are so close they could touch. Particularly going around corners. The streets were not designed for the traffic they take now. However, I am totally impressed with the skill of the drivers. At one stage, there was a bus lane and from where I was sitting, I couldn't work out how there was room for the bus in the bus lane let alone room for a car to pass in the car lane.

This was the view from the top of the bus

Now you tell me that a bus and a car will fit on that bit of road - well they did !!

Blenheim Palace is a large and monumental country house situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the only non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title "palace". The Palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between 1705 and circa 1724. It was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim_Palace

The entrance to Blenheim Palace

Most people drive and there are plenty of car parks. However, for those of us on foot, the entrance has a very, very long walk up. This photo was taken about 1/2 up after the kiosk where you pay.

This is an aerial view of where I walked. The push pin is about where the bus stop is.

Looks kewl from above, doesn't it.

The walk there, from the bus stop, wasn't too bad. I was fresh and ready to go. After walking around the grounds for several hours, the walk back seemed to take forever !!

These are the front gates:

My first impression was the grounds. At this time of the year, many trees are changing colour and the overall impression was STUNNING!! Far too big to be taken with a normal camera. All my photos simply give an overall impression.

Inside was incredible.  Very ornate as was normal for the times it was built and used. I'm glad they've kept the old stuff though. I wasn't allowed to take photos inside much to my disgust !! However, I do understand the reasoning and was not too upset. I bought a couple of postcards so hopefully will get them scanned tonight and include them.

The Long Library: Apparently the second longest library in the world. Books, books and more books. They are behind grills so they can't be touched or stolen. Down one end, there is an upper layer with a small verandah around it. I am still wondering just how those books were accessed. I'm figuring there was a door somewhere I couldn't see.

At the other end of the library, was an organ "In the Long Library the Willis organ, at the north end, was installed by the 8th Duke in 1891 and is the largest privately owned organ in Europe." http://www.blenheimpalace.com/thepalace/sundaymusic/

I guess I'm a book person and just the scale of the library impressed me. Imagine having that much room for that many books and in the same room, have a ginormous organ.

At one stage I caught up with a group who were taking one of the tours. I followed them for a while and then got bored with too much information so I went off on my own. I can only take so much of these places. Too much information.

I stopped and had something to eat - spicey parsnip soup - not very nice !!

This is the Water Garden outside the cafe:

It was quite dry looking. I suspect the greenery has lost it's summer flowers and general greenery. Or maybe not. Been browsing Google images and it doesn't look any greener. So maybe this is how it looks.

A couple of the statues around the garden:

Then went for a wander around the gardens again. Guess what I saw? These guys:

A ring necked pheasant. And here's his female counterpart:

There is a major difference between male and the female - I thought they were two different birds.

Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, with males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than the females, and have longer tails. Males play no part in rearing the young. Pheasants typically eat seeds and some insects. While on the ground, a collection of pheasants is called a nye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheasant

Sexual dimorphism is the systematic difference in form between individuals of different sex in the same species. Examples include color (specifically referred to as sexual dichromatism), size, and the presence or absence of parts of the body used in courtship displays or fights, such as ornamental feathers, horns, antlers or tusks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism

So now I've seen real pheasants, not just read about them in books.

This tree was incredible:

It is apparently a Swamp Cyprus and it really took my fancy. Behind, you can see The Cascades.

This is them. From there I decided to check out the stairs

When I got to the top, I realised just how tired I was and that any more exploring would lose it's interest. So I turned around and retraced my steps back to the palace.

On my way out, I found The Italian Garden which was closed and didn't take me to the exit. But I did take two more photos before I filled up my card in my camera.

This was in the middle of the Italian Gardens and the next one was one of the hedge sculptures which were all around the gardens.

Now how much work will that take to keep it in the shape. As you can see, the bird sculptures were all around the garden.

That's all for now folks. And I didn't get the scanning done this morning. Maybe tomorrow.

Madeleine

Thursday, 30 October 2008