HAMPTON COURT, ENGLAND

April 25

We took a bus all over the place to get to Hampton Court, where King Henry VIII lived as well as many other monarchs. We saw his apartments and the King's apartments and the Queen's apartments. Some of the rooms were ornate and some were not, which was surprising.

We took a tour of the royal kitchens. Boy, was that a lot of work to cook for over 600 people at a time, and serve hot food. We also learned that when they made meat pies, the outside pastry was not to be eatten. The pastry was made as a cooking pot for the meat and you were supposed to take the top off and only eat the insides. I think that has gone by the wayside nowadays. We had a pastie, just to try. It was delicious and we ate the whole thing.

Another interesting thing, there is a outside walkway that has no ceiling and is very narrow. It is designed to not let the son enter to the bottom, but it can and does get rained on. What this does is creates a natural refrigerator. So there were "cool Pantries" on both sides of this walkway to keep the stores for the court fresh.

We made our way thru the maze. That of course was fun. We also walked thru some of the formal gardens. By then we were pretty tired.

Took the bus back, even tho it was over 1/2 hour late. We were worried that we weren't in the right place, or something else was wrong, but no, we were ok.