Hello all!

Well, I'm not really sure who's reading this anymore, but in case ya'll are still interested in seeing more pictures and aren't completely sick of hearing about England, here's another post!

At this point in the trip, Emily was finished with the Gilbert and Sullivan performance in Buxton, so we left that cute town and drove down south to the even cuter town of Bourton-on-the-Water. On the way there, we stopped at Warwick Castle:

Unfortunately, the castle ended up being a bit of a dissapointment, mainly because it was swamped with other tourists...it was so crowded that there was hardly any room to walk around...haha, the funny thing is though, in most of the pictures we took, we managed to make it look like not that many people were there!

This is probably the best indication of the crowds there, only there were like three or four times as many people as that!

One of the rooms inside in the 19th century exhibit...they had these fake wax figures set up in all the rooms...they were actually quite well done in that they looked really real, though I felt that it was a bit much...the rooms would've been just as neat without them. I was also disapointed that there wasn't much information about the history in any of the room. I guess you had to rent the audio tours, only there were too many people rushing through the rooms. There was no way you could've stood still long enough to listen to a tour--people would've run us over!!!

A nice picture of Emily and I in front of the castle!

I like the reflection in the water here: 

Another one of us...in the background is this really cool water wheel!

Emily and I in front of the castle!

After Warwick, we drove on to our bed and breakfast in Bourton-on-the-Water! It was soooo quaint! In fact, that whole town was just adorable...so picturesque you really wouldn't believe it!

Here's a picure of Emily and I in front of the bed and breakfast:

Sitting on a bench at our bed and breakfast:

Another view of the house:

Pretty view from the house!

Here's a few pictures from the town of Bourton-on-the-Water when we went out to dinner that evening:

The next morning we visited the town of Lower Slaughter which was near Bourton-on-the-Water...we walked around the town and took a pretty detour out into the fields!

Cute cottages!

Walking through fields:

Later that day, we went out for tea at a very cute tea room in Bourton-on-the-Water:

Well, I think that's enough pictures for one post!

Cheers!

~Laurie

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I didn't post again about England sooner, but I was engaged in a fierce struggle with my xanga which was not allowing me to post more pictures (I am sorry to say that my xanga won...I had reached my upload limit for photos and I was finally forced to get premium for ONE month in order to upload all the photos from England...). Anyway, I will now finish writing about our trip...

Let's see, to begin where I last left off...Later in the same day that we went to All Saint's Church in Bakewell (which is what I posted about in my last entry), we visited the very grand estate of Chatsworth. This estate was used as the Pemberly in the newer Pride and Prejudice (with Kiera Knightly), and while I really can't stand that version, the house is truly incredible. The land has been owned by the Cavendish family since the 1500s, though most of the current estate was built a little later in the 1600s. The Cavendish family were first created Earls of Devonshire 1618 though they later were made Dukes of Devonshire in 1694 after they helped William of Orange to the English throne. The present duke is the 12th Duke of Devonshire, and he actually spoke a bit on the audio tour which we listened to there which was pretty neat! The estate is now way too expensive for the family to manage on their own, so they've created a family trust for it, and the money that people pay in order to tour the house all goes towards keeping up the estate.

Anyway, here is a really beautiful view of the house as you drive up to it:

This is the first large room which we entered on the tour, and it was called "The Painted Hall". All the walls and the ceiling were entirely decorated with large paintings!!!  

A better view of the ceiling in that room:

This is a view of the room from across the stairs on the second floor...the arch across the room and all the "architecture" is all actually painted...it's made to look like real architecture or sculpture on the wall but it's all just illusionistic painting--isn't that so cool???

This was the very large and ornate buffet in one of the rooms:

This is incredibly cool here...this picture shows an open door and then another closed door beyond that. Now the closed door is real, with a real doorknob, but the violin which appears to be hanging there and the paneling on the top of the door are all painted! It was an amazing example of illusionistic painting...you really almost couldn't tell what was painted and what was real!

I believe this was the "State Music Room"...as you can see, it is very ornately decorated! One of the amazing things about Chatsworth was that it had an unbelievable art collection--it was really like being in a museum!

The set of "state rooms" were created for when the king might come and visit (apparently they even rivaled the king's rooms at Hampton Court!!!), but if I remember correctly, none of the kings of England actually ever ended up visiting Chatsworth until like 1930!

Here's a picture of the family's private chapel:

They apparently still do baptisms there!

The dining room...almost all the paintings were by Anthony van Dyck except for two, which were both Frans Hals'!!!

This is the sculpture gallery which was pretty incredible! For those of you who have seen the newer Pride and Prejudice, there is a scene where Elizabeth is touring the house and she walks through the sculpture gallery and sees this bust of Darcy (instead of a painting, like in the old one)...I always thought that was kind of dumb, but I will say that they really did carve a bust of the actor who was playing Darcy and it is now on display in the sculpture gallery...unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of it...

A sculpture of the "Penitent Magdalen"--I guessed it without even looking at the label!

Me sitting outside at Chatsworth where we had lunch (a steak and ale pasty, no less!   It was actually quite good!)...

Mom and I walking in the beautiful gardens at Chatsworth:

View of the house--isn't it breathtaking???

Me in front of Chatsworth:

And finally, as we were leaving Chatsworth, I saw this really adorable cottage, so I got a picture of it as we drove by. Isn't it so quaint???

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that!!! Please leave me lots of comments, and I'll post with more soon!

~Laurie

Here's just a very quick update to say that we finally made it home!!! I calculated that between the flight and waiting in the airport forever, we spent 14 hours straight on a plane or in an airport! Needless to say, I would rather not see a plane again for a VERY long time! However, we all really did have such a wonderful time, and I miss England already, though it's very good to be home!

I'll be posting pictures (haha, probably more than you'll ever want to see! ) and writing some more detailed entries about our trip asap! But for now....I'm off to sleeeep finally! Because of the time zone difference it's about 2:30 in the morning right now for us (since we're still adjusting back from England time...), and so I'm absolutely exhausted...

I can't wait to catch up with you all!

Cheers!

~Laurie