Blenheim Palace

Welcome to the beautiful Blenheim Palace, said to be "Britain's Greatest Palace". The palace is the home of the Duke of Marlborough, and the place where Winston Churchill was born. This has been the home of the family since the 1700's, and they still live there to this day!


This is the front view of the palace. It is such a long walk to the front of it. You have to pass through several gates and a courtyard to get where you see here.




This is a view on the south lawn of the back of the palace. Can you imagine mowing this lawn? The entire estate is over 2,000 acres. Seven acres comprise the palace itself, with three acres of roof space!




This is the fountain on the side of the palace in the garden. The statues are gorgeous and huge!




Here is a view from the top of the terrace of the gardens and fountains. The statues are gorgeous as well that are placed around the fountains.




This is a picture in the "Secret Garden". I guess it is not much of a secret, but it was pretty tricky to find, considering there are thousands of acres! It was a good walk to the garden, but well worth it. Here is the pond with the fish in it, equipped with lilly pads, rare plants, and tons of shade from the trees.




Here we are (Whitney, Megan, Me, Kaylee, and Corrine) sitting at a table in front of the gorgeous gardens. This was my first experience with "scones and cream". Better known in America as Muffins and sweet butter. They were incredible!




Here are me and Whit in the middle of the Rose Garden. (P.S., I am not sure if we were even supposed to, but we did any way.) It kind of looks like and engagement picture, but whatever!




This is the "Mermaid Fountain" in the Duke's Private Italian Garden. Visitors are not allowed inside the garden, but we took pictures over the hedges.

British Museum

This is the British Museum in London. It took us quite a while to find actually because it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was really worth the walk though. The outside of the museum itself is gorgeous.




This is inside the museum. Once you walk in, it is like an open courtyard and the whole top of it is covered with a glass roof. It was so neat inside.




This is an artifact from the Parthenon. It is part of a story carved in stone. There are several of these around the Parthenon exhibit.




This is the Nereid Monument. It was on top of a tomb, but got destroyed. In the museum they had pieced the parts back together and put them on this awesome display.




These are more statues from the Parthenon. Even though there are may pieces missing from the sculptures, they are still really beautiful.




This is a picture from the Ancient Egypt exhibit. It is a giant statue that fell from one of the temples. You can't believe the scale of it. I tried to get people in the picture so everyone could see how large they were.




This is the real Rosetta Stone! It was so awesome to see, what an experience! What an amazing piece of history. The writing on the stone is incredibly small and the words are really close together. It is amazing to think that someone was able to translate it.

Winston Churchill Museum

Well today was officially the hottest day in Britain's History! 102 degrees F plus humidity! Luckily for a short period of time, we got to go inside the Churchill Museum, which was air conditioned. It was so neat!



Here is me and Whit by a portrait of Churchill. The Museum is underground so it was kind of dark.




This is a giant touch screen timeline. You can touch a year and see events. It also moves and folders open to see little pictures.




This is Whitney playing with the touch screen map. When she twists the object in her hand, the map moves because it is changing direction. You can see where armies moved and the battles that occured.




This is a pond on a table that is touch activated as well. When you touch it with your hand, little quotes from Churchill pop up. Fish and stuff swim around as well.

A Day in Birmingham

Today we took a little excursion to Birmingham. We got to ride the rail today, which was air conditioned!!! It felt so nice. We went to Brinton's Carpet Factory to take a tour and see their design center.




This lovely gentleman was one of the tour guides that took us around the factory. He was so nice, he made sure we had plenty of water!




This is a picture of their inspiration boards from the design center. This is just an example on how they take these photos....




...and get this! This is just a picture of one of their hand tufted rugs!



This is me and Whit on the train. Our first rail experience. It was a good one too! Tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day of of July ever in the history of Britain! It was nice to be in the air conditioning!

British Lingo

So when we first got here, it was so weird hearing the people talk. Not only do I love the accents, but I love the crazy words they have. Like garbage is "rubbish", a shopping cart is "trolley", and tons of other little words. Whitney and I went to lunch in a little Italian cafe after touring the castle and saw this on the dessert menu....

...Apparently it is something with molasses!

Inside Windsor Castle

We weren't able to take pictures inside the castle because it is a private residence, but we were able to buy pictures from the gift shop. So we bought some and posted them so you could all see how awesome it was!

The Queen's Presence Chamber

King's Dining Room

Garter Throne Room

King's Bedroom Chamber


The castle had so many secret doors, we decided to ask an attendant where they led too. He said most of them just lead to other rooms, but he did say that their is a door in the castle leading underground where there are a whole labyrinth of doors and tunnels.

Windsor Castle

This is the beautiful Windsor Castle. Today was my favorite day by far of the whole trip! This castle was gorgeous. We got on the Tube and rode to the rail station and rode the train to Windsor. This castle is over 900 years old!

This is the tallest tower of Windsor. You can't see it, but there is a flag on top. If a flag is up that has blue, yellow, and red squares, that means the Queen is here. Unfortunately today, we missed her.

These are the guards that stand by the castle. Me and Whit had to be extra careful because every few minutes they switch their bayonets. I guess a couple of years ago a Japanese tourist was standing too close to a soldier and he got his ear cut off! (Because they are not allowed to move, they must perform their rituals!)

The soldiers perform the same little routine and walk the same line every day. They have walked the path so much that the road is worn where they walk. Crazy huh?!

This is just a soldier standing in an archway of the castle in front of the court yard. I didn't see him move much, but he did a cool little dance with his gun too!

Sunday in London

Being the good children we are, we went to church today. It is so cool, the ward house is right across the street from the Natural History Museum and near the V&A. Here is Whit, Brighton, and I in front of the church.

This is the man we met at church, his name is Surgey. Mind you, this is not at church, he found us again at the Tube station. He fell in love with Whitney in about 5 seconds. So basically, he loves her.

This is the all famous Platform 9 and 3/4, from Harry Potter. I am not a Harry Potter fanatic, but it was cool to see it. We went to get our rail passes validated and it was right across the way.

This is the wonderful man that helped us validate our passes. We were really struggling figuring it all out, and when he found out we were American, he stamped our passes right away. He was so nice, we asked to get a picture with him!

Apparently, this Tube stop also has relation to Harry Potter. I am not sure what, but I posted it any way.