Castle Week - Hampton Court Palace

Hi again everyone! My Easter holidays have been quite busy so far, so havent really done any sewing *blush* BUT we did see a lot of London :) Many things I have already seen but the bf hadnt so I dragged him to various castles to visit. It was great! Today we're getting some things done around the house (am getting a new stove at last whoohoo!) so plenty of time to blog. With all the visits we've done in the last few days, I will post only about castles as a small tribute to the Royal Wedding happening in just a few days. I wont go into central London as it will be super crowded, but this way you can see some of London and it's royal history anyway :)

On Good Friday, as is tradition in my family, I dyed the Easter eggs :) Just plain with a tablet, some water and vinegar as we've been doing for years. The result was great though:

The two bird eggs are styrofoam so not real, am not that handy with eggs! LOL

On Saturday I dragged the bf to Hampton Court Palace. I love this palace and he had never been so this was the perfect time. Knowing that Easter Sunday would be a bust to visit anything and the weather was great, I just had to go somewhere. We had to run but in the end we arrived at the scheduled time and boy was it a gorgeous sight as always:

Busy as was expected around Easter but not too busy to be annoying :)

The view of the clock in the Clock Court

Gorgeous detailing

See how high these walls are? Yes, that's my all tiny in green in the front ;)

My favourite part are the kitchens, so we walked through the 'servant part' to get there

As it was a holiday weekend, they were preparing a meal like they would have done it in 1542.

Spit roast and all! And yes, it was about 26C outside...

This guy was preparing the chickens... I love the authentic look :)

This cook was really nice and even posed for me when he brought the pie out :) Check out this super authentic pie!

Dessert was also being prepared and this cook is adding gold leaf to a sugar boat. Impressive!

One nice lady offered to take our picture which of course we couldnt refuse :) And in the kitchens too!

We then went outside to the gardens which were amazing also. The bf didnt like the sun too much so we took the horse-drawn tram to see a large part of the garden, but we walked through this little part also.

The view from the back of this garden where you can see the house built for William III (he knocked a large part of the original palace down to build this, shame on him!)

Lovely small garden, I'm sure it had a name but I dont remember it.

The small walkway passing a few more of those tiny gardens with a lovely view...

...showing the Tudor towers in the background

LOL am not part of the view, but this is a great photo to show off my dress :) I made this! I'll post about it another time though...

Of course we also saw the state apartments and everything, lots to do with Henry VIII. In 2009 they had a whole exhibition about him that was also super interesting.

This is a bird eye view of the palace. Isnt it huge?? Can you believe this used to belong to Wolsey only? Until he pissed off the king that is...

I have a ton more pics but I cant post too much on here as my entire storage space will go, but I'll try to set up a Flickr account or so to share the rest if you like. We also went through the little maze which was great fun and even found the centre LOL. It was a very good day :)

Taadaa! Our new home :) LOL I wish... but it does make a killer photo!

Tomorrow I will show you the Tower of London, so watch this space. Now, where is my recipe book to try out the new stove...