Hampton Court Palace

We took Jason and Susan to Hampton Court Palace on Monday, to take advantage of the best day of weather that the Easter weekend gave us. Aimee (Susan’s friend of 15 years) and Neal (Aimee’s boyfriend) decided to join the party as well.

Hampton Court

The palace is absolutely massive! It was King Henry VIII’s favourite palace, or so goes the memory that I choose to keep. In it’s heyday, it featured an indoor tennis court (still there), three bowling lanes (possibly still there, but we didn’t see them), and a hedge maze! (The maze was possibly added after said heyday, but it’s most certainly still there, and it most certainly charges £3.50 to enter.)

The gang in the maze

For some reason I believed that the hedge maze was massive and almost impossible to navigate through, however I couldn’t have been more wrong. (Turns out it’s Leeds castle which has the massive maze.) The aim of the maze was to get to the centre, and we did so in about four minutes. Still, it was four very fun minutes, so no complaints!

Inside the palace is very… well you know, palace-y. I mean it’s nice and all, but I have trouble differentiating one palace from the next one (with the exception of Buckinghuge Palace, that place was niiiiiiccccccceeeeeeeeee…..). They’re all very opulent with fancy pants decorations and ornate fittings and lovely door handles and what-not, but I’m sure that when I’m an old codger (i.e. in six months), they’ll all become one and the same in my memory.

The gardens, however, are something else – absolutely spectacular!

Palace gardens

I reckon their gardeners would give the Backyard Blitz team a decent run for their money!

We timed our exit rather poorly as the train left the station about three minutes before we got there. We decided to wait the half-hour out along the banks of the river, and were fortunate enough to be there when a boat to Kingston chugged up, so on we hopped! It was a lovely way to close out the day!