Bike Tour to Hampton Court

Hampton Court Palace was initially the property of Cardinal Woolsey, but he eventually gave it to Henry VIII, so a lot of history happened there.  Later it was expanded by William III (of Orange) and his wife Mary II.  It definitely fits the bill of a ¨real¨ English castle, complete with maze and everything else you expect in a castle (no moat, however, unless you count the Thames).

We decided to spend Sunday with a bike tour to Hampton Court.  We started at Waterloo station, took a train to Richmond, meandered on antique-looking bikes along the Thames to Hampton, had lunch and spent the next five hours touring the castle and grounds.  We then took a train back, exhausted. There was an option to return via a boat along the Thames, which might have been lovely on a warmer and less windy evening. Castles are hard work, for kings', servants, and tourists alike.

Jay in his cute British helmet with our guide John:

The building in the background is part of Richmond Castle (where Elizabeth I is supposed to have died). One of the buildings has the wonderful address of One, Wardrobe, Richmond Castle (that is, the first apartment/condo in the Wardrobe building of Richmond Castle -- I regret not getting a photo of the sign). According to our guide, one of the apartments in the Wardrobe is for sale, if one of my readers wants a really cool address (it probably goes for more than $1M)

We strolled along the Thames, seeing a lot of things you wouldn't see if you came either by train or car.  The various manor houses were designed for people to come by boat, so the imposing fronts are toward the river.  Now there are pubs at the river edge, though many of them flood regularly.  We found one that has a ¨back door¨ several feet higher, to be used when the tide is high.

Here our guide is talking about the houseboats that people live in up and down the river.

After about 8 miles we came to Hampton Court.  This was our first view:

Henry definitely was into making a show.

Here is the Castle proper, on the side that existed in Henry VIII's time (William and Mary remodeled about a third of it into a very different style)

Apparently the chimneys, which make it clear that every bedroom has its own fireplace -- individualized heat -- were another symbol of opulence.

After a good lunch (riding those heavy bikes into a wind was hard work, mind you), we got properly lost in the maze (any picture I took would be just of hedges and people. Here's an aerial view by someone with access to resources I don't have):

The grounds ranged from a formal English garden complete with topiary trees, to a ¨Wilderness¨ of somewhat tangled and unkempt undergrowth meant for ¨getting lost in¨, to a kitchen garden trying to reproduce all the food items grown in Henry's time, to a beautiful and beautifully fragrant rose garden (old roses smell so much better than the new ones).  We got to see something billed as the oldest grapevine (I assume in England -- the French or Italians must have older ones), covering an arbor about 20 feet long.

Inside were a number of self-guided tours.  The tour of the kitchens was far by the best -- the palace regularly served 600 plus the servants, and could serve 1200.  We also covered Henry's life with his first wife (they did not live in this castle -- it still belonged to Woolsey at the time), and the state apartments and reign of William of Orange.  Oh, and not to forget the chocolate room. Apparently William was enamored of hot chocolate, which they made starting with raw beans. As near as I could tell, this was very similar to modern Mexican hot chocolate, though perhaps without the peppers.  The connection was never mentioned, even though the stirrer was called a Molinillo, just like they call it in California.

We also learned that there are apartments here that you can rent, having the run of the grounds after it closes to the public.  (There is a ¨real¨ -- meaning indoor -- tennis court and a golf course on the grounds).  The minimum stay is three nights though, and I'm not sure you would find that many days of interesting activities.

We wandered to the train station shortly before closing, exhausted, and also glad we aren't of royal blood and expected to wander around in these drafty buildings climbing so many stairs.

FYI, we did this with Mind The Gap Tours, which I would highly recommend.

London Theatre

The point of going to London was/is theatre.  When we couldn't find any interesting shows (we have seen Mathilda, Book of Mormon, Billy Elliot, and even Jersey Boys), we were planning to go elsewhere for our long weekend.  But then my friend Evan told us (because someone he knew had been in London recently) about Shakespeare at the National Theatre, and when we were closer to our dates, we found some interesting shows open and available.

The first play was King Lear at the National Theatre.  Three. and. one-half. hours.  Those folks really got good value for a penny in Shakespeare's time.  But really engrossing.  It's staged in modern times in a military dictatorship.  Could be Vietnam, Congo, Serbia, Syria.  The theme is that absolute power corrupts (and destroys) absolutely -- but you knew that.  Very well staged. Lear is played by Simon Russell Beale (a well known British actor.  You might know him from My Week with Marilyn, or he played King Arthur part of the time in Spamalot, both Broadway and London).  He carries the show.  Regan is played by Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays the lead (the woman with the two kids) in The Bletchley Circle (well worth following, if you don't already).  The other actors may be well known to British audiences, but not to us.

Our star-struck moment came when the person next to us, a season ticket holder, pointed out Penelope Wilton (plays Mrs. Crowley in Downton Abbey) in the audience.  She too is a Shakespearean actor.

The stage was nicely done.  Relatively austere, but with lots of special effects done with images. King Lear starts with an eclipse (at least in the script), and this is what we saw before the play began.

Ending with:

The second night we went for the opposite end of the spectrum -- a revival of Pajama Game, a 1950s musical, that's about labor vs. management at a Pajama factory in Keokuk, Iowa (we were probably the only people in the audience who knew exactly where Keokuk is).  Of course, it's really a multiple couple love story, but the employees' fight for higher wages is the underlying framing.  It has songs you might know, but probably don't associate with it:  ¨Hernando's Hideaway¨, ¨Steam Heat¨, (while I'm sure this got by the 1950s censors without major problems, it definitely pushed the envelope in the direction of risque lyrics) and ¨Hey There (You with the Stars in your Eyes)¨.  The cast was energetic, excellent singing and dancing, and it was a lighthearted evening.  It just opened about two weeks ago; the theatre was full, mostly of people who might have seen it during the initial run.

Here is the outside of the theatre:

The stage before 'curtain up':

And the very lovely loges (no, we didn't have seats there):

So we got both serious and light London theatre.  Not bad for only four days in town.

Different smoking cultures

Ahh, I do appreciate California smoking laws.  I think there must be a lot more smokers in the UK and Germany, which contributes to the problem.  While the indoors of restaurants are all non-smoking, bars are not, and the entire outdoors is a smoking area.  That means that the smokers congregate at the exits of everything (university buildings, hotels, restaurants) and also on the outdoor patio of every restaurant at least half the patrons are smoking.  I suppose in another 10 years, it will be the kind of restrictions I expect (10 years ago, there were no smoking rules for restaurants, but they were widely ignored.  I have to admit to progress.)

Four days in London

Blogging and touristing don't mix.  I want to spend my time doing things, not writing about them. But now that I am back in rainy Germany (having left rainy England), I'll catch you all up on what we did. TL;DR version: we saw lots of classic tourist stuff and some plays.

This was my first visit to both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum.  I thought the former was an ¨attic¨ -- a hodgepodge of items (though very nice items)  -- until I saw the latter. My word, the Brits were/are collectors, and they got there first and collected the really good stuff. The most intact statues, sarcophagi, etc.  I have ever seen.  But definitely arranged to give you a sense of quantity as much as quality.

Here is the entrance to the British Museum.  Note the hint of sunshine in the background (but also note the wet ground)

From the British Museum, I've captured a picture of a Grecian urn. My friend Jeff and I taught a course in statistics at CHI years ago, where we did some examples involving drawing black and white marbles from an urn to demonstrate probability.  We so wanted a real Grecian urn to put our marbles in, since that's what all the classic examples talk about, but we never found one.  I found the perfect urn, Jeff.  Shall we teach that class again?

I also have to point to this perfectly relevant xkcd cartoon that appeared today.

At the Victoria and Albert, we went to an exhibit on how wedding dresses have changed over the years, starting in 1750ish.  It was fascinating.  I actually thought that some of the simple gowns of the 18th century (made of muslin) were the most intriguing, but to be fair, they seemed to pick some pretty extreme items for the more modern gowns (see Gwen Stefani's wedding gown below).  I highly recommend it if you are in London in the next couple months.  Jay went mostly to be a good sport and ended up finding it enjoyable too.

We tried to walk around as much as the weather would cooperate.  We wandered through Hyde Park and came across the Queen Elizabeth gate (created to honor Elizabeth II's mother)














We had tea in Kensington Gardens (what a civilized custom, though I don't know how many Brits actually take tea these days).

We also visited the Tate Britain museum, so Jay could see the Turner galleries (he is a big Turner fan) and just ducked into the National Gallery (to get out of the rain) with enough time to see the Turners there and the Impressionists.

And of course, we ate well.  We had dinner at Gauthier Soho, a  very nice ¨modern French¨ restaurant.  FYI, I don't recommend the tasting menu (which we didn't have).  It's a lot of food, as the folks at the next table found out.  They came before us, and as we left, they thought they had 3 courses to go.  The service was impeccable, and the 3 course menu (I had the duck with the foie gras -- mmmm) was just right.

More about the plays we saw and the visit to Hampton Court in later posts

Next Stop, London

After a stop back in Duisburg to repack, we are off to London for a long weekend.  I will try to take pictures, but don't expect any posts till maybe Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Church cross in Oldenburg

These are some of the best pictures I have taken, so I definitely want to share them.

This is inside an old church in Oldenburg.  It was pretty nondescript (even ugly) from the outside, so I didn't think to take a picture of it.  The inside is from the 18th century, set up to be very light, with a domed ceiling (that you would never suspect from the outside).  It also has this rather modern, plexiglass cross that reflects light in amazing ways.  I wasn't sure the camera would capture the various colors, but it did very well.  Keep in mind that the cross is clear plexiglass.

This is the most impressive one:

This was taken very close in time, but at a different angle, to give you an idea of how different it can look.

Neat, huh?

Olderdissen Animal Park

I went a bit farther afield in my hiking today, having enticed Jay to play a bit of hooky, since the weather has been perfect for the last 3 days, we ended up at the local Tierpark.  Tierpark, literally Animal Park, could be translated as zoo, but this one is full of animals native to Germany or at least Europe, so it was much more of a collection of common animals, rather than exotic ones.

The park is free to all, and is a surprisingly well maintained collection, so there must be substantial government funding.  Their pride and joy are their brown bears -- a male and female pair.  You can barely see the female in the back with her head in the little shed/building, while the male prowls around (he was drying off after a swim)

I learned a lot of animal words, using the pictures as guides, but a lot of them I didn't know the name in English.

These are large deer known as Hirsh.  The bars mess the picture up, but I thought the antlers were pretty impressive.

And swans always make a good picture (and are easy to identify).

What surprised me the most was the number of Germans who bring their dogs to the park.  Can you imagine an American zoo allowing dogs in?  This one even had places to tie your dog up while you used the bathroom or went in the restaurant.  And these were often big dogs, not just terriers and the like.  I didn't see any situations where the dogs disturbed the park animals, but it must happen.