Saturday - Our U.K. journey ends with Hampton Court Palace and the Royal Opera House...

Woke up and had breakfast with the Ford family before heading over to Waterloo station. We had all decided to go to Hampton Court Palace since the Fords wanted to do a trip outside of London and had not yet visited it. We were dying to check it out, especially since we hadn't yet visited a palace (except for the outside of Buckingham Palace), and because of our interest in Henry VIII partially spurred by watching "The Tudors" TV series on Showtime. It was also one of the easiest day trips to make outside of London that would allow us to get back in time for our evening at the Royal Opera House later that evening. We made it to Waterloo Station at the perfect time - the next train to Hampton Court Palace was leaving in about 10 minutes. Charles and Laura enjoyed looking out the window, watching the suburban neighborhoods go by, Jason enjoyed swinging on a pole inside the train, and the Fords played an intense game of Uno.

The train station was right across the river from the palace, so we quickly got our first view of the awe-inspiring Tudor structure. Once outside the Palace we realized it was almost lunch time and we were all hungry so we went to a pub across the street for a bite to eat. The food was quite good but it took forever to get served, so the Fords encouraged us to get a move-on after we finished our lunch and they would follow soon after.

We passed through the entrance gates and thought about the history of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and all of the historic figures who had walked or rode along that same path. Hampton Court Palace was built (from the site of a much smaller manor) by Cardinal Wolsey in 1514. According to the official site:

Wolsey built a vast palace complex at Hampton Court, immeasurably transforming a grand private house into a magnificent bishop’s palace.

Wolsey added new sumptuous private chambers for his own use, as well as three suites for the new royal family: one each for King Henry VIII, Queen Katherine of Aragon and their daughter Princess Mary.

Throughout the 1520s, Hampton Court hosted important European delegations. These were occasions for ostentatious displays of wealth and conspicuous consumption, but also – and the two purposes were not mutually exclusive – for doing deals and signing treaties that would help improve England’s position in Europe.

We knew we didn't have hours and hours to spend here, so we planned our visit according to some of the recommendations of the visitor's guide. Since we were here in the year 2009 the Palace curators were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne. All sorts of festivities and re-enactments were going on throughout the grounds. We started our visit in Henry's wine cellar where an actor portraying the king (the dude definitely had the right girth!) played a game of cards with a member of the court on what was supposed to be the day before his wedding. The actors were dressed in period costume and stayed in character despite the crowds, even taking in comments and interaction with the many people in the audience.

The re-enactment was well done but got a bit tiresome and we were eager to see the apartments, so we headed over to the "Wolsey Rooms," part of the original section of the palace which tells the story of young Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey. This area connected to the "King's State Apartments" designed in the late 1600s by Sir Christopher Wren for William and Mary. The rooms were amazing, but one of the most breathtaking parts was the "King's Staircase" which had beautiful Baroque wall paintings by Antonio Verrio. These apartments had a series of rooms including a throne room, the bedchamber, and the very cool "Guard Chamber" with arms and armour artfully arranged on the room's walls. Astonishingly, Laura didn't take any photos of this room! Many of the rooms have exquisite tapestries, apparently most of which were collected by Wolsey and Henry VIII and were some of the best made in the world at the time. It was also interesting to read about the history of the "Joint Monarchs" (the only time this ever occured in British history) -- Dutch-born William was extremely unpopular ("terrible" table manners according to one label), moreso when Mary died prematurely. Anne, Mary's sister, hated him and was happy to take the throne when he died. Alas, all of her 17 (!) children died (either stillborn or very young) as well so the Stuart dynasty ended with her.
At this point we were anxious to see some of the spaces that Henry VIII had occupied, so we headed over to his "State Apartments" which included The Great Hall which could hold up to 600 people at a time and were used for meals served twice each day (we'll get to the kitchens later!). The next room was the Great Watching Chamber with its beautiful ceiling and tapestries which was where the Yeoman Guard were stationed to control access to the king. But one of the most magnificent spaces was the Chapel Royal which has been in use every since it was built by Wolsey about 500 years ago! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the space since its a functioning chapel. This ceiling put that of the Great Watching Chamber to shame!

We had heard that you "couldn't miss" the Tudor Kitchens so we wandered over to investigate. This is the largest surviving Renaissance Kitchen in Europe, serving the Tudor court with over 600 meals per day (delivered, we assume, to the The Great Hall, mentioned in the previous paragraph). The huge stone fireplaces were most impressive and large displays of various meats, fish and vegetables from that period were laid out to give one a vivid picture of the wealth of the Tudors (and their large appetites!).

We knew we needed to start winding our trip down, so we headed out to the gardens which we'd caught glimpses of from William and Mary's apartments. The magnificent "Palace Gardens" were originally designed in 1689 with "1.8m obelisk yew trees and holly globes, edged in box and punctuated by gravelled avenues and 13 fountains." We took a moment to memorialize Charles' sister, Marianne, in this beautiful spot. We are sure she would have enjoyed this area just as much as we did.

After walking through the amazing gardens (but never making it to the maze due to time constraints!) we started winding our way back to the exit. Except the exit could only be accessed by going back through the main courtyard which meant backtracking about fifteen minutes! At least we got to catch another glimpse of this grand palace. We hope to come back another day when we can devote more time...

Made it to the train station just as the train going back to London was leaving! Blast! We rested at the train station until the next one came - exactly 26 minutes later.

Unfortunately we realized that we were not going to be able to go back to the pad, change and make our dinner reservation at Rules, the oldest restaurant in London.

Got to the flat, got dressed and headed out to the tube (where we packed in there, right next to some British blokes whose accents were so thick we thought they were speaking another language!) and headed to....
The Royal Opera House!

We had tickets to the ballet to see "Isadora" and "Dances at a Gathering." Before we headed toward our seats we needed to grab a bite to eat so we went to one of the bars which was beautifully decorated. Since we were starving, we got some tasty salmon and butter sandwiches and champagne. The moment inspired us to take some photos of each other sipping champagne at the bar, celebrating our last night in London in style. We went to our seats when we heard the bells announcing the performance was about to start. Once we entered the theatre, we realized just how beautiful a space is truly is. And we were extremely happy with the great seats we had.

The first piece we saw, "Isadora," is a biographical piece about the early 20th century dancer Isadora Duncan which included unorthodox (for the ballet) elements such as voice-over and film clips. Isadora had a life that was tragic, colorful and yet full of joie de vivre. She was truly a woman ahead of her time, who had two children out of wedlock, both of whom died young in an unfortunate accident, and a third that died hours after birth. The ballet doesn't get very good reviews but we enjoyed it. (For one blogger's photo album go here). It was interesting to see a ballet that is different from the classics like Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Giselle, etc. Of course, Swan Lake was playing while we were there but, sadly, it was sold out. It was getting rave reviews but, alas, it wasn't in the cards for us.

During intermission we wanted to explore the opera house a bit more so we headed to another bar up on a higher level from the first we had been to. We were so happy with our evening that we decided to get a second glass of champagne! and look at the view from above...

The second piece, "Dances at a Gathering" was completely different than "Isadora" - more about a celebration of dance and dancers and definitely not much of a narrative. It was choreographed by Jerome Robbins of "West Side Story" fame. The piece is broken up into small, quick numbers performed by various groupings of the dancers (solos, duos, etc.), all set to piano pieces by Chopin, with all of the dancers finally performing together at the finale. For Laura it was a joy to watch the ballet dancers in action with no set decoration at all except for a subtlety changing colored backdrop. Click here for reviews of both performances.

After the performance ended we hated to leave such a beautiful space, so we slowly walked out taking in all of its beauty. We took a few snaps outside of the opera house and then walked around to find some dessert and a night-cap to end our evening. This turned out to be a far more difficult a task than you'd imagine. All we wanted was a drink and dessert -- most of the places open were either fine dining restaurants or expensive-looking (and packed) bars. After wandering around the Covent Garden area (and enjoying our final stroll here) we stumbled upon a cute, Italian joint which had one last table open. Thinking ourselves lucky we grabbed the table and sat. Alas, we were anything but lucky as our orders of "Scotch neat" (the Brits have another term for "neat" -- can't recall what it is) turned into Southern Comfort (!) and Charles' ice-cream dessert was kind of on the melty side...but, despite all of this we were glad to be enjoying our last night out in London.

We got back on the tube heading towards Gloucester Station one last time. While walking back to Issy and Roger's place, we decided to walk down the small street called a mews (formerly an alleyway used for stables) which Laura had admired and remarked on each time we passed. It had great archways that looked hundreds of years old. There are many streets like this in London, and the old stables have now been turned into beautiful homes. (The photo at right is a good daytime shot of what we think shows the mews we walked down or one like it.) While walking down this enchanting street at night, we knew that on this trip we had just scratched the surface of what there is to be seen in London and vowed to return!