Take me to the Castle, please!

Greetings!

Again my apologies for posting so little. I just finished one of my tutorials (sigh of relief) so now I should have more time to write(:

Almost a month ago (whoops!) our programme director took us on a trip to see Blenheim Palace (pronounced Blen-him by the locals, Blen-hi-m by tourists) and Warwick Castle (Again, pronounced War-ick by the locals and War-w-ick by tourists. Its great how you can differentiate between the two now... I prefer to think I fall in the first category, but who knows?? ) Both are about an hour away from Oxford.

Its rather difficult to remember all of the many, many palaces and castles around England, but Blenheim is distinct because it has never belonged to a member of the royal family or the clergy (Generally, those are the lucky people to have the giant, expensive, gorgeous houses we like to deem palaces. Perhaps the CRC should look into providing such lodgings for their members...).

The Main House

The land was given to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, by Queen Anne in the early 1700's for winning a great military victory (Pretty nice gift, huh). Eventually the Churchills bankrupted themselves in the process of creating their beautiful estate. 

The backyard(:

And then around 1900, the 9th Duke of Marlborough decided to fix things up. So he did what was fashionable at that time: married a rich American. His bride was Consuelo Vanderbilt, who brought with her what would have been $300 million today. You can imagine how the palace was transformed after that...

More of the backyard

As marriages for money often go, the Duke and his wife did not get along at all; eventually they divorced and the Duke married another American, Gladys Deacon, whose dowry redid the roof(: So you see, we Americans can take some pride in saying that the roof is ours!

The gatehouse

For those of you who recognized the Duke's last name, you will be interested to know that Blenheim Palace is also the birth-home (or should I say birth-palace) of Winston Churchill. His father was the second son in the family, so neither the title nor the palace ever belonged to the prime minister, but he did spend a considerable amount of time here. It would have been a great place to grow up(:

Giant chess sets

Fabulous maze- this was only a small part of it.

There was also a butterfly garden and a train to take you around the extensive grounds. 

Definitely a prime place to grow up.

Except for that part. And of course, as my dad says, I have a slight disdain for rules. Notice that only one boot is one the grass, not two.

Some of the grounds. Very Pride and Prejudice.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, but suffice it to say that the Vanderbilt's money was well spent!

A panoramic shot of the house.

And now onto Warwick Castle!

Warwick was once a medieval castle, but now it much more resembles a Disneyland Castle than anything else. Costumed characters of knights, princesses, servants, and witches roam around playacting their various roles; there are numerous sword fights, witch trials, and archery demonstrations. It looks like great fun if you are 10 years old, but we "wise" 20-year-olds walked around with our knowing smirks as if to say, "Oh, remember those years when you enjoyed such a thing." We all conveniently forgot that it was only a few years ago that we would have been right in the middle of them giggling.

A view of the castle from the ramparts. Lets just say it was not the ideal place for those who are...uncertain about heights.

A group of the girls ready to storm the castle.

A view from within the walls.

Another view of the surrounding city from the top of the ramparts. It was quite breathtaking.

Nope, its not a cross. I'm sure all of you who were medieval archers in your day will recognize this, but for the rest of you (including me) this is an arrow-slit. It is through this that archers shot so as to afford themselves a bit of protection. These slits, however, opened into the castle grounds. Makes you wonder as to the nature of their job if they needed to point inward instead...

And down we go... There were about 300 of these steps to go down before you reached the bottom. Definitely better than a stairmaster.

A little hamlet just outside the castle walls. You can't see it now, but there was a wedding happening just to the left(:

Trying to pull the Merlin's Sword out of the stone. I was successful, of course!

There was much more happening, but one of the more interesting demonstrations was the trebuchet. As I had mentioned earlier, there were many costumed characters running around, including three rather disgusting looking witches who were subsequently tried and found guilty of witchcraft. Their punishment was to be lit on fire and catapulted from the trebuchet. It took them ages to ready the trebuchet- I'm not sure how successful they actually were in battle if it took 20 minutes to load, but who knows? Anyway, here's a clip:

No witches were harmed in the making of this movie. They probably should have told the little kids watching; some of them started crying.

Anyways, that was just a quick tour. I thought you would all enjoy a glimpse of something you don't often run into as you're driving along in the states.