Yanky Londoner: 60 Acres of Fun

I am slowly recovering from the amazing visit I had with Sandra. We were the ultimate tourists doing almost everything. On Saturday, we had a wonderful time at Hampton Court Palace - a 60 acre palace about 40 minutes outside of London on the River Thames.

As the palace is huge, we spent about 5 hours doing various things around the place. The palace has been the home to many monarchs, including Henry VIII and Queen Mary I. Also, at one time Cardinal Wolsey lived there. As I have just watch the first 2 seasons of Showtimes "The Tudors," I am now an expert on that period!

As we wandered around, I was taken by all the beautiful chimneys everywhere.

At the palace, you can take various tours. Sandra and I did a audio tour of the Tudor kitchens which were massive and impressive. The 16th century kitchen rooms use to cook over 600 meals a day for various Kings and Queens. As eating meat was a symbol of wealth, over 70 percent of their diet was meat!

Here are the "refrigerators". The rooms on both side of this walk way had thick walls and the food was kept at a constant temperature.

Here is Sandra standing next to one of the massive fireplaces where they would roast their meat.

Of course, they also had to have their wine and beer!

Sandra and I also took tours of various rooms throughout the palace. We also took a 1 hour guided tour with one of the palace's gardeners (there are about 30 of them). As there was only 5 of us, it was like a private tour. Here is a picture of the rose garden with the palace in the background.

There were also beautiful Tudor gardens that have been constructed. This garden use to be a fish pond. The property had many fish ponds at one point to keep the fresh food ready for the King and Queen.

Here is another garden.

While Sandra and I were walking around, there were amazing flowers everywhere. They have a private nursery and the gardener said they plant 120,000 plants a year! Here is a flower the size of Sandra's head!