Sept 11 Chartwell and Hever Castle and Sept 12

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England, Chartwell and Hever Castle, Sept. 11, 2008

Loaded up again and onto another bus; finally have our Tour Director on “Day 4” of this tour (first two days were travel days for most tourites). Seems like a larger group, but maybe it's a smaller bus, or something. Many women traveling singly, and couple of sisters/friends, and a few couples. Average age probably higher, only one rather younger person.

We took a circuitous route of London, scheduled take-off was 8:15, but the first place we were going to wasn't open yet really when we got there. It was Chartwell, Churchill's home south of London, beautiful surrounding property, somewhat moderate in size, bigger than Carl Sandburg's Connemara near home. There were some things about it that reminded me of Sandburg's place, tho; his was a restored, enlarged farmhouse, and this one is a somewhat enlarged brick manor house. Lots of books, similar kitchen, separate bedrooms, study/writing area, cows instead of goats. Chartwell has more garden area, more manicured - it's a lovely setting. Lots of Churchill memorabilia and many of his paintings. It has the usual cafe and gift shop visitor areas (slightly creaky restroom, but several stalls). It was rainy a bit while we were there, but still fairly busy on a Sept. Thursday (I would hate to be here on a really busy day - close quarters to get many people through at a time.

Then we traveled on a half hour or so to Hever Castle. Lovely gardens and topiary.

9/12/2008, Friday

I just got this far and quit last night, and now I'm having trouble remembering yesterday. This tour doesn't seem as well-organized and planned out for time - on the other one there were times we didn't have quite enough time somewhere, but this one already, we have too short a time at one place, and way too much at another. But I've been at this so long, things are running together also.

I'm sure I have more to describe about yesterday - Hever stop was combined with lunch and not enough time was allowed - same today, we were at Stourbridge, which is a lovely, large property with beautiful gardens, but didn't get too see much of it because it was our lunch stop. Had a lovely Pub lunch, smoked salmon sandwich, with chips and some salad and a good beer, but then very little time to see anything, and was late back to the bus with another lady.
Our hotel is nice, with expensive food, but it's a golf resort way outside of town with no other food or grocery opportunities. And apparently we need to be able to pack a lunch in order to do the sightseeing. I was planning on this being a pleasant trip, but the first two days have been rather annoying for the logistics. Tomorrow we head to Stratford, so I may acquire some more food supplies, altho I do have some left that I brought along (am not regretting bringing food along for sure0).

Today we saw Salisbury Cathedral (I didn't pay the extra to go inside), with local school boys doing their track practice running around the outside of it; they were from an adjacent school where William Golding once taught (maybe that's why he wrote that awful book ).

Then on to Stourbridge which is a beautiful estate (Palladian, world famous garden). We then drove another hour an a half to a place called Beaulieu, which for several of us was not worth the time - we would have much rather stayed at Stourbridge. Beaulieu is currently lived in “by Lord Montagu's family since 1538” and is interesting from that standpoint, but doesn't take much time. The property has added the National Motor Museum (fun to see old cars and prop cars), a small James Bond exhibit, a little monorail, etc. and also has an old destroyed Abbey, but it did not take the 2 and ½ hours we were left there. We were only allowed 2 hours at Stourbridge to see a much larger house and gardens, plus have lunch - and it was a bit hilly to get around.

Did see a few wild ponies as we drove thru the New Forest (new in something like the 11th Century). And had good weather again. There was a hot air balloon flying over Salisbury, that was kind of fun to see.

Got back at 7 and had Cottage Pie with Vegs and a good beer in the bar for about $30.00 or so! It was good. Nice to have free Internet access here to catch up on email and the news (ethernet, not wireless, so I can do it in my room in my jammies - yes, that could be a good straight line!).

Hever Castle is an Anne Boleyn site, portraits of each of Henry the 8ths wives and a bedroom that was supposedly his when he visited. It's not the original castle - one of the Astors bought the property and recreated it, and have used it as one of their homes. He also created a magnificent Italian garden, with masses of baby tears, mazes, rose gardens, and topiaries, etc. I don't think Anne was there for very many years, actually, it looks like she got around quite a bit during her short life. Interesting stories.

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