Hampton Court!

Today was EPIC!! Kensington Palace better step it up with their next exhibit on Queen Victoria (opening March 26th!) because if it as bad as the last one Hampton Court is my new favorite. Its crazy because of the crashing together of two very different periods, but they are separate enough to be ok.

Getting up this morning was horrible. I was really running late and then decided to take the bus to save time. I waited for 5 minutes and it didn’t come, so I walked to the tube (after wasting time) and just as I got to the station the bus pulled up. Grrrr… I took the Jubilee line down to Waterloo Station where I met Freya to catch a National Rail train. I took my very first English Train. Oh my goodness it was so incredibly easy. After doing it in Italy in Italian, buying a ticket and finding the train in English was a piece of cake!

Hampton is very easy to get to! It’s a 30 minute ride from Waterloo and the station is the last stop so you can even sleep and be ok! Once you get off at the station, you literally walk across the bridge and its there! I thought it was a lot taller than it actually. I also thought it was a lot bigger, and then we went inside the façade and it WAS! It was a bit confusing… some of the Palace is Tudor era, the other part was built by William and Mary, and Queen Anne even did some work. So you leap a good 200 years when wandering about.

I LOVED the Tudor section but then again I love the Tudors in general. I cant believe Im admitting this… but I LOVE King Henry VIII. Besides killing two of his wives… he is pretty cool. Crazy but in a really interesting way. I love him. And Elizabeth I… epic queen! And the clothes of the era. Its all just cool so if any if you like the Tudor era, go to Hampton. If not but you like the 17th / 18th century go and see the other wings. Modest but pretty :)

I just want everyone to know how good I was… the giftshop was AWESOME and I bought NOTHING. They had really good looking book, every Alison Weir novel, mini sets of amour, and the best… a coffee mug that when it’s hot the pictures of the 6 wives of Henry disappear! Hehe. I didn’t buy anything. It was hard but I held out! I did want to get a postcard but I forgot to go back for one! I will just have to get one when I go back!