Cycling around the Isle of Wight

After many wonderful trips to various places around England, Ashwin and me felt that it was time we did something different. Something that we could remember even if we suffered from Amnesia later on in life.
I sat one whole night pouring over my guide book and finally after hours of research suggested something radical- A cycling trip around the cliffs of Isle of Wight.
Ashwin liked it but there were serious doubts over the idea- We did not know the road rules of England - they drive on the left hand side of the road, that is where the similarity ends when compared with India. I had not touched a bicycle since 1994 and the last time I had ridden one I fell and fractured my ankle. We did not know the level of our stamina too and since the weather prediction for the rest of the week was rain, we were wary of the wet slippery road too.
But something took over us and in spite of all these doubts we got up one fine morning and took a train to Lymington pier, on the south Hampshire coast.
The train to Lymington pier was had a vintage touch to it and was a far cry from the modern trains that we were used to.

From Lymington pier we boarded a ferry and stood on its open deck braving the cold winds.
Though there is a nice cosy warm lounge inside, we had to temper our bodies to what we were about to do. Below is Ashwin keeping a Lookout from the ferry!


and here he is Mooing, a special tribute to a special one.

The ferry unloaded us at Yarmouth and a 10 minute walk from the pier led us to a bicycle shop from where we hired two bicycle's . We were asked to wait for 20 minutes during which the bicycles were undergoing pre-hiring tests. We used this time to plan our route on the map and briefly get acquainted with the rules of the Road.
As we were waiting by the lake side for our bicycle, we had our first encounter with a Local, who gave us a big smile and it reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Movie Commando!

Well we finally had our bikes and with kid steps slowly started to pedal. We decided to start our trip on an unpaved road, since there would not be any vehicles and it would give us some practice.
A little experiment with the gears and in 20 minutes we were pretty confident of our balance. Now we had to prove our self's on the road.
The ride was very picturesque and I can only imagine how it will be in spring, when the trees are in full bloom.
Every time we met locals ( mostly taking their dogs for a walk) here they had the perfect etiquette of giving a nice smile, followed by wishing and enquiring about the weather.
This actually continued during our entire day at the Isle, so much so, that we cannot remember one single person who had not wished us.

There were times when even car's slowed down and the drivers gave us a nice smile. There was so much of warmth and respect and it all made us so comfortable and good.


After an uneventful enjoyable ride, the first place we reached was the Freshwater Bay.It took about one hour of cycling to reach here, the route was pretty straight and even and its only when we decided to have a view from the cliff that we had to climb the steep ascent.


and steep is an understatement...

Once on the cliffs, it was all windy plain grasslands and was a lovely sight, so beautiful that no photograph could do justice to its beauty.

Just Awestruck



We ventured close to the cliff edge to get a feel of the strong wind blow against our face; the wind was so strong that even if we had to jump off the cliff, we would have been blown right back into the hill.

Photographed from the very edge of the cliff.


Photograph of the warning board that says, "Cliff edges can be dangerous". Since there is not fencing around....


........ activities like sitting on the cliff edge like this should not be done !!!


The serpentine roads of the isle wind through picturesque country planes and you never realise time fly by as you pedal your bike through the planes.

The only creatures with attitude here where the sheep, this one certainly did not like us photographing him and gave us dirty looks.



Through long winding roads we pedaled from Freshwater bay to Alum bay. The scenic ride past sheep farms and farmhouses was simply exhilarating.

It was mostly downhill now, and we were enjoying riding full speed and breaking the sound barrier on the bicycle. It was sheer delight as the wind hit out face and froze our veins. It would be hours before we could see any cars.


At alum bay we had our lunch, which included a nice thick juicy sausage and the most tasty burger that Ashwin or me have ever tasted.
Next to the restaurant was the Alum glass factory, we spent some time here, watching glass blowing and reading interesting trivia about glass in the small display that is kept for visitors.



Our reason for visiting Alum bay was to visit the Needles and from the glass factory we had to pedal on a continuous ascent for about one hour to reach the needles.
The ascent was slow because we were halted many a time by the sheer beauty of the place.
The multi coloured sand of the Alum Bay can put even the rainbow to shame. The red colour is due to Oxidation of Iron in the sand and various levels of oxidation gives different colours.
Coming closer to the needles we saw a path that took us very close to the cliff edge and provided a breathtaking view of the entire bay. The cliffs looks like massive chunks of chalk and felt like chalk too.

It was sheer rush of adrenalin as the wind kept us pushing away from the cliffs and we went on cycling leaning on the invisible wind.

when it came to the climbs though even wind did not help..


We Finally reached to the peak of our ascent and on the top is a Old Victorian Battery which once housed Guns to defend the English Channel from enemy naval attacks. Above is the remains of an old rocket testing site. In the 1950's ICBM's were test fired from this place. We stood on this place and looked towards the sea.


And from this point we finally got to see the scene which we so hallowed, 'The needles'. This entire trip was centered around this view and we had finally made it. We jumped hugged and clicked photographs, but standing there was difficult because of the strong winds. We even had difficulties parking our bicycles in the strong wind .

Above is a closeup of the Needles light house, it held special importance to me since I had used this point to fix my ships position numerous times, when we transited the English Channel. All I had seen of it before was its Radar Echo and it brought back all those memories.
( The place is called the Needle, because there was a Needle shaped chalk formation in between these rocks which collapsed in 1764, but the name still stuck)


The wind had now become so strong that walking was nearly impossible, there was a shower but the water was quickly dried off by the strong wind. Clicking photographs was pretty difficult but we somehow managed to get a few shots. Above is the Photograph of Alum bay from Needles and below is Needles from Alum Bay.


Wind had picked up to Force 6 ( 40-50 kms/hr) and staying around the cliffs was becoming nearly impossible. We then decided to go back and at this time we experienced our best cycling joy.

We had a steep downward slope, wind was on our back and pushing us at 45 km/hr. We simply let our bicycle brakes loose, I have no idea of the speed we were travelling at but everything around seemed blurred. The wind was pushing us down the slope so fast that probably my entire reservoir of Adrenalin was in my blood. We had rocketed down from a rocket testing site within minutes .Once at the base of the hill we looked at each other and gave a hi-five.
It was nearly dusk and we had to reach Yarmouth and return back the bicycles before dark. Since our bicycles did not have any illumination it would be very unsafe to ride at night. We pedaled back as fast as we could with all our energy, only stopping and resting at pristine secluded beaches for a bottle of water.


The beach above entirely consisted of Pebbles and these pebbles made beautiful sound when the waves brushed against them.
Just at the end of twilight we reached Yarmouth, we had pedaled for about 21 kilometers. When we started the day we never thought we would do something like this, but the day could not have ended anyway better.
We let nature take control of us, instead of fighting the elements we gave in to it and Nature did not let us down. We only managed to explore 1/6th of the Isle, today we can only wonder what the rest of the island has in store for us. We sure will visit it again and complete the Journey.

Bristol

After a relaxing nights sleep at the Bath spa University hostel Ashwin and me had a nice sumptuous English breakfast that was our fuel for the rest of the day.

We were to take a train from Bath to Bristol, but works on the rail line made us take the Bus, which dropped us to the Bristol Meads train station, photographed below.
We had grand plans for Bristol and the morning did not unfold in the way we expected. Next to the train station is the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum and it was our plan to start the visit of Bristol by visiting this museum. Its only after waiting until 10 that we realised that the museum would not open since they are shifting to London.. Grrr...
We then caught a bus and headed to the Harbour front where we spent a little time walking around the river side and looking enviously at all the lovely yachts.


We had come to the harbour front to visit the Wildwalk - an indoor botanical garden which recreates a tropical forest in the heart of Bristol. But unfortunately for us this too was closed because they were sprucing it up for the summer tourist season. We sat beside the fountain wondering what to do next.
From where we were sitting we could see houses atop a high hill, we wondered how Bristol would look like from there and decided to trek to that place. Looking into the map, we realised the Bristol zoo was located somewhere in that direction and headed there.
It was a long steep climb. Sometimes I felt that we should have taken a bus, but clicking photographs of the steep road we climbed was never so fun.


We treated our self's with photographs and a mouthful of water after every steep climb. It was a 30 minute of steep walk and we sometimes wondered if the walk would be worth it. We were heading towards Clifton.....
As we were approaching the zoo, we came across a beautiful view, this one of the Clifton High school, the scene was so beautiful that we stood there for quite sometime. It was hard to believe that this was a school.
Closer view of the school...

We entered the Bristol Zoo and I must admit that although it has a wonderful collection of animals and is very educative, the zoo did not appeal to us. May be because of the artificial kind of feel ( it was too clean to be associated with animals ) but it sure is a very nice way to teach children about animals and they have almost every thing from Lion to a housefly, from a Okapi to mole rats and from Seals to dart frogs.
The one that I liked a lot was feeding of the seals, I had never seen seals before and feeding I had seen only on the tele. We did get a bit hungry looking at the big chunks of fish these seals were being fed with.
Well after eating a chocolate bar from the vending machine we came out of the zoo and we had to still see the houses on the cliffs which was the reason we were here. We kept following our instincts and walked across the beautiful country side. The walk was very rejuvenating and we kept walking through these tunnel of trees as the sun kept setting on us.
We walked about 10 minutes in this alleyway of trees and I wonder how the place will look in Summer when the trees are filled with green Foliage.
The streets where we walked were lined by beautiful Victorian styled mansions and it sure seemed like a place for the cream of Bristol's affluent people. Below is the photograph of the Christ Church at Clifton.
As we reached the end of our steep climb, we were greeted by this wonderful view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The view was so grandeur that all our tiredness vanished and it seemed the visit to Bristol was truly worth every penny.
( The flare in the above photograph is caused because of the internal refraction of sunlight in the camera lens, since the rays enter the lens at an angle. It was just by chance it happened and I like it so much that I decided to post this one over the other ones without the flare)

On the steep slope of the hill we spotted many people ( even children) playing slide. They were sitting on top of the smooth rock and were sliding down the hill. It was quite amazing to see it. We walked on the bridge and loved the wonderful view the bridge provided.
The building on the cliff is the Clifton Observatory and houses a camera Obscura, it also has a passage that leads to a cave in the middle of the cliff from where one can get a magnificent view of the bridge.
Photograph from the other end of the bridge.
We finally had the view of Bristol that we came searching for, it was simply breathtaking
A view of the bridge from another side.
The massive wires that hold the bridge.

The Sun was setting as we finished looking at the bridge and began our descent down to bristol. One last glance at the bridge and it looked even more prettier with the sun playing tricks with shadows.

As we reached the City centre we passed across the SS Great Britain. The ship was designed in 1843 and served for 43 years as an ocean liner. After being damaged in 1886 she was converted to a cargo ship and has been in Bristol from 1970 and is today a Museum. It was too late for us to visit her that day.


After a long fun filled walk we rested at the waterfront watching people play in the night light.

After a nice unwinding hour we had a big pizza and headed back to bath- from where we went back to Reading.
Historically speaking Bath has always outshined Bristol and we felt it continues to do so, the Modernity of Bristol has failed to outshine the beauty and elegance of Bath.
We had two lovely days of outing- living like two free birds, going where we wanted to heading to where our instincts dictated and mostly eating and drinking what we just felt like. These were some of the best days of our life's.

Bath - How the Romans bathed and other Adventures

Ashwin and I play a game called 'Imagine' where we pose hypothetical scenarios to each other and try to imagine and share our imagination that can run wild and amok. We were on train to Bath from Reading and 45 minutes into the journey Ashwin asks me, "Imagine what would happen if everything around you turned back to 18th century, and just this coach is from the modern age."

Just when I let my imagination run wild, we entered a tunnel and one minute later we came out of it and looking out through our train window we saw every thing around had turned back into the middle ages ! No this is not science fiction and neither did we enter some worm hole nor were we dreaming. We had reached Bath- One of England's most iconic cities.
We got down at Bath station and started walking towards the city centre at about 9 AM, most of the tourist attractions were not opened and hence we decided to walk around the city centre for a hour. Bath is a city of beauty both in terms of natural and man made. The entire city of bath features in the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites and is also designated as "Area of Outstanding Natural beauty" (there are 34 AONB's in England).
The Most common name for a river could be the name Avon and England only has four rivers by that name. It so happened that, when the Romans came to Britannia and asked the locals what the name of a particular river was the Locals always replied 'afon' .The Romans assumed that the afon was a long river and started calling it Avon. What the Romans did not realise was that afon was the Welsh word for river and the locals did not name their rivers but just called them afon. Hence we have so many River Avon's in England today and also we have a Photograph of Ashwin standing on the North Parade road Bridge and looking at River Avon Passing below him.


As we walked across the city we came across another bridge, this one was the famous Pulteny Bridge. Built in 1773, this is only one of the four bridges in the world which has shops across the full span on both sides.We saw a Antique shop, a flower shop and a restaurant among many other shops.
We walked across the bridge and stood admiring its beauty and wondering what kind of fish swam under it.( yeh fishing is the first thing that comes to our mind when we see any water body) The weir on the photograph below in front of the bridge was rebuilt in 1974 to control flooding of bath. The weir had to be built in such a way that it would not harm the architectural beauty of bath and they sure have achieved that objective.


Below is the Photograph of the Bridge and weir clicked later on that night.

Also close to the bridge on the bank of Avon is the Parade garden. The garden is very beautiful and is perfect place for a cup of tea or ice-cream.


We walked down the Pulteny bridge, and its nice to get a Fish eye view of the city above you, One of the buildings that you can see is situated next to the Bath market, the top of the building is designed with three different architectural styles- Does it look good? You be the judge for many it is a eye sore.

We crossed the Pulteny bridge and reached a Fountain called the Laura Place. The straight road gives an first impression of what you can expect in Bath. At the end of the road is the Holburne Museum and Sydney gardens.


It was nearly 10 after all that walking and we decided to first visit the Bath Abbey. The Abbey was built between 1499 and 1611. If you look closely at the Facade of the abbey, you can see Angels climbing up and down stone ladders commemorating a dream of the founder, Bishop Oliver King.




Once inside the Abbey we were totally smitten by the beautiful fan vaulting of the nave. (You can see it in the Photograph below )
As you approach the altar you can see this beautiful stained glass window containing 56 scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. The abbey is filled with memorials and has plenty of beautiful stained windows.

Below is the View of the abbey from the choir stand.The ceiling contains painted heraldic shields.

Below is the Pipe Organ of the abbey. Many of the medieval English churches I visited have these massive pipe organs. When Mechanically compressed air is vented through these compressed pipes a sound of a fixed pitch is produced. A combination of these different sets of pipes can give rise to notes of different Pitch, timbre and loudness.
The abbey has a Heritage Vault and looks like a underground cave , which has been transformed to a museum. The Museum traces the history of Bath from the 8th century to the present times, in the view of the abbey. In simple words- if the abbey could speak, it would have told its story just like this museums display. ( Interesting concept...hmmmm...)



We came out of the abbey and our next destination was the Roman bath which is besides the abbey. Outside the Bath, 2 street performers gave a wonderful display of some good English Humor ( which mostly includes poking fun at the French.) Ashwin and me had a good hearty laugh at the expense of some French and Germans.

One of the performer, slipped a rubber glove over his head and blew it up with air. His partner then let out a blast of fire on the ballooned glove which blew up like a bomb. If you notice the performer on the right hand bottom, you can see the pink glove bursting .
Yeh some more English humor I guess ?

And a little distance away some more performers entertaining the crowd.
Finally we entered the Roman bath- One of the Finest spa of the ancient world. Bath has Britain's only natural hot water spring. Rainwater which fell thousands of years ago in this area percolated down baths limestone hills and when deep inside the earth it was heated to steam and was pushed back to the surface as mineral water spring. Today nearly 1 million liter of water comes out of the spring every day. The Romans who could not explain how hot water came from underneath the earth, used the explanation provided by the local Celtic people- It was their Goddess Sulis who heated the water and sent it to them. Since the Romans had their own goddess similar in attributes to Sulis- Minerva. They believed the springs were made by SulisMinerva and built a temple around the sacred spring. Below is the photograph of the spring. The red colour is because of the iron content of the water and the Sulphur from the spring gives the air around the spring a weird smell.
A part of the spring water was used for the Roman spa and the rest of excess water drained into river Avon( all this happened during the 1st century.) When Rome was under attack the Roman legions in Britain left for Rome to defend her, and the spa fell into disuse. It was then slowly covered with successive years of civilizations and was Discovered by the Victorians in the recent centuries.
In the photograph above, the statues are in level with the present day Bath, the water body you see is the spa at the level Bath was in the 1st century. Successive years of reconstruction and demolitions have slowly raised the level of Bath.


These statues of the Romans were added by the Victorians.


This is the remains of the sauna room foundation. A floor used to sit on top of these bricks and hot heated air was passed underneath it. The room heated up and formed a Steam Sauna.

And for all those Romans in a hurry or those feeling Macho, after their hot steaming sauna, they would directly jump into this cold water spa. Just imagine- from 90 degrees to 10 degrees in seconds. Wow

Below is the Worm eye view of the bath, the whitish smoke on top of the green water is the fog created because the water is at 46 degrees and the air on top at 7 degrees.


From the Roman bath, we headed to the pump room, which is basically a room with a pump to pump the water from the spring. The water is potable and we had a go at it. It tasted like drinking chilled molten rust.
From the Spa we headed to the Fashion Museum, Bath has been a cultural trendsetter and fashionable haunt for the cream of the British society for the last 300 years and a fashion museum is a natural outcome of it. We walked for about 20 minutes ....
And then reached inside- Honestly since for us the only fashion is a Jeans and a T-shirt we were not too keen to try out the Corsets and the skirts in the museum ( a few ladies were seen trying though). Below are the photographs of of some 17th century gloves.


What can I say ?

Well looks like Ashwin found something interesting ...

From here our next destination was The Circus and it was just a 5 minute walk from the Fashion Museum.
The Circus is a magnificent circle of 30 houses and Plaques on the houses commemorate famous residents, one that particularly interested us was that of Robert Clive ( our high school history still follows us) there is also a plaque for David Livingstone.
The circus is divided into three segments of equal length, and is surrounded by large townhouses. Each of the curved segments faces one of the three entrances, thereby ensuring that whichever way a visitor enters there is a beautiful facade right ahead. Each of the three floors are built using 3 classical architectures (Greek Doric, Roman/Composite and Corinthian).


A short walk from the circus is another architectural marvel- The Royal Crescent. It is actually a semicircular terrace of majestic houses overlooking a private lawn and the greenery of the Royal Victoria Park. ( Queen Victoria inaugurated the park when she was a little child, she never came to Bath after that because a local newspaper reporter called her clothes "dowdy". She vowed never to see the city again, and even when her railway carriage was passing through town decades later in her reign she ordered the shades to be pulled shut!)


From the crescent we visited the house of William Herschel - the astronomer who discovered Uranus. He discovered the planet from the very garden photographed below.

The house is preserved the way it was when Herschel lived including his workshop where he made his telescopes and below is his dining room ( just the food is missing)


After the Herschel's house it was nearly 6 PM and most of the attractions were closed and we were tired. We decided to take a round in the open top tourist bus. It was a nice change of view- we finally had a birds eye view ( low flying bird ).
After that we headed to the University of Bath spa. We had booked a room in the hostel here. It was a amazing place and was a nice chance to relive our memories of hostel life. ( though these hostels were more like 3 star hotels made of glass !) This is one moment of the trip we will never forget.
We had a nice 2 hour bath in Bath and went to sleep- We had to leave for bristol the next day.
Bath is .....hmmmm.... ( cannot find any appropriate adjectives....)

Time Travel in London

It was a cloudy Sunday morning and after a nice sumptuous breakfast at Reading, me and Ashwin were wondering where to go for the day. One of the most coveted destination in London is the Natural History Museum. We set out to London, reached paddington station, crossed the Hyde park and reached One of England's most treasured and distinctive buildings, the Royal Albert hall ( photographed below)


Inaugurated in 1871, if you look closely at the photograph at the top of the building running around it is a mosaic frieze . It is titled " Triumph of Arts and Sciences"
After a little walk we reached the Natural History Museum. The entry is this beautiful atrium having stars on the wall and five historic figures. We used the Escalator to ride into a giant metallic globe.


The Museum is Divided into four Zones; The red for the forces that shaped our planet, Green Zone is about Ecology, in the Blue Zone we met a lot of fossils and the orange zone has all the Botany and zoology that you can think of. With about 70 million items on display, one needs one full day to do justice to this museum. We quickly glanced pass all exhibits, since the one that we most wanted to see was the Blue Zone. Nothing gives us more pleasure than meeting the Fossils, communicating with our ancestors who shaped us. Although they are mostly bones and rocks, they speak more than the flesh. One thing that fascinated me the most was this massive fossil of Ichthyosaurus. This was just one of the many massive fossils we got bowled over, not to mention the T-Rex, dodo and archeopteryx.
It was amazing to be in a room filled with fossils and looking at them with awe , just like Ashwin below who is stunned by a Diprotodon ( A distant relative of the modern Kangaroo, fossilised Australian herbivore)

Just if appreciating the fossils were not enough, as we reached the end of our museum trip we entered this magnificent main hall. The hall has a cathedral-like structure, frescoes and sculptures, and houses a Diplodocus skeleton and a 1,300-year-old giant sequoia.
For 15,200 pounds you can hire this hall for a night and host any programme or event, even a wedding.


A stones throw away from the Natural history Museum is the science Museum and enroute we witnessed this contortionist performing a few cool tricks, including passing through a tennis racket, which I had seen only on television.
The science museum is Seven floors of interactive exhibits and contains everything that science has to offer from the Industrial Revolution to the space age and even the future. There is a lot for every age, from vintage cars, old trains antique aircraft , labour saving devices at home, wind tunnel, flight simulator and even this F1 car belonging to Mika Hakkinen which crashed during the 1999 German grand prix as the car spun out of control while travelling at 207 MPH. Because of the cars safety features, Mikka just walked out of the car.
Because of paucity of time we had to rush through the science exhibits but it was truly a fantastic experience. There was a massive maritime museum too but it was too big for the time we had at hand.

We were the last people to exit the museum, we walked back passing through Hyde park at dusk and the atmosphere was simply electrifying.

Photo below is the pathway across Hyde Park 25 sec exposure, f/4, ISO 100.
Photo below 2sec exposure, f/4.5

The photograph below was captured with a 30 sec exposure, ISO 100, f/3.5
Sony A-350 18-55 mm
At the end of the day, we felt we had walked into a time capsule. From the birth of earth in Museum of natural history to the very future in the science museum.

Hampton Court Palace - Meeting King Henry VIII

Hampton Court Palace is located next to the River Thames to the south west of London and was built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1514 but was forced to give it up by King Henry VIII. It is the largest Tudor structure in England and it took our Entire day to have a look at it and still had to rush through with the gardens and a few parts of the palace we not accessible because of reconstruction.

I visited the palace with Ashwin ( photograph below) and three of his Colleagues ( photographs later). We arrived at the palace at 10:30 and above is the first view of it. After purchasing tickets we got an Audio guide and started our exploration.



We entered the main gate house and it had 3 entrances to choose from. One was to the Garden, other to the kitchen and the third to the state Apartments of Henry VIII. The Kitchen seemed tempting but since the State Apartments are the highlight of the palace decided to go to the State Apartments first.
The magnificent interior facade of the Main Gatehouse contains a fine early example of a post- Copernican astronomical clock. The clock shows the time of day, the phases of the moon, the month, which quarter of the year we're in, the date, the sun and even the star sign. Photographs Below.
A closer look at the clock.

The Entrance to the State Apartments were decorated by these beautiful paintings.


These stairs are said to be haunted by Ghosts of Jane Seymour, Queen Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn. ( The figure appearing like a Ghost in the photograph is Ashwin- The living one)

The audio guide of the palace was filled with lots of information and trivia. The Iron Works on the stairs were by Jean Tijou and the Grand Paintings are by Antonio Verrio.
As I entered the Grand staircase, the first room was where the Guards room. It is decorated by weapons including draggers and guns which could be used if the need arises.
Photography was not allowed inside the apartments and hence sorry could not post the best photographs. But the State apartment has a wonderful collection of paintings, China and carvings. It feels good to be in the bedroom, dining and the office of a king. Seeing his work place and his reading room made me feel very royal.
Once out of the state apartments We reached the fountain court.
Around these corridors was a Chapel and a Wine cellar, we wasted no time in having a feel of the royal Wine cellar.The palace had three cellars. The wine cellar, with attached drinking house
for wine tasting, held 300 casks of wine for courtiers (wine and ale for the sovereign was kept in the privy cellar). About 600,00 gallons of Ale was stored in the great cellar and have been drunk every year at court.
After a look at the chapel ( photography not allowed again) we reached part of the palace that were dying to; Kitchen of the Palace. The first room is where fresh provisions were received and accounted for. Meat was cut here which included a annual supply of 1,240 oxen, 8,200 sheep, 2,330 deer, 760 calves, 1,870 pigs and 53 wild boar.
These kitchens were made to feed 600 people a day and feed King Henry's courtesans with endless stream of dinner. The kings food was not made here though. The kitchens were accessed through a gatehouse, which was occupied by the Cofferer (kitchen accountant) and his assistants, the Clerks of the Greencloth, who monitored the arrival of all supplies and staff to the kitchens.
In the pastry house both sweet and savoury pies and pasties were prepared in four ovens. It looked like a Shepard's Pie to me.

The spicery was filled with exotic spices imported from the Orient and Europe, as well as English mustard and herbs grown in the palace’s herb garden. The Office of Spicery was responsible for the huge quantities of fruit produced in the palace gardens, including apples and pears from two
orchards. Ashwins selects a few Royal vegetables for our dinner here.

All these facts were explained in the audio tour guide and there were these costumed Historians and guides who did a fantastic job of taking us into King Henry's time.
After the Kitchen it was the turn of the 60 Acre riverside garden. Before that we had our lunch in the palace restaurant and devoured food made within the palace.
We were flabbergasted by the sheer size of the gardens it was also fun to be in and had a great time here.

One of the most famous attraction of Hampton Court is its maze, built in 1695 its path is half a mile long and takes an average of 20 minutes to complete. Walking, running and a few dead ends later we reached the center in about 8-10 minutes

We had never seen trees like this, hence thought of carrying one back home !

Beautifully trimmed Yew trees, they line up the entire Fountain garden.
Fact's and too much facts for the day...The palace is full of history and the garden full of fun

A view of the palace from the Privy garden. Some of the gardens are closed during winter and all are at their flowering best in summer. Probably will come back on a summer.
Now a view of the Privy garden from the palace .
In summer this will be completely lush green with vines.
The Pond gardens : These sunken gardens were used for holding freshwater fish prior to cooking in Henry VIII’s kitchens. The ponds were filled, landscaped and terraced in William III’s era and used to display Queen Mary II’s collection of exotics.

The palace also has a vineyard which has a 230 year old Great vine planted whose roots are outside a glass house and the branches grow inside the glasshouse. Its sweet grapes are used as royal dessert and are also sold to visitors in late summer. The vine has a place in the Guinness Book for being the longest vine in the world.

As the sunset we returned back home after a great time.
The sunset added to the fun of the drive back. It was a wonderful day and worth every minute.