The Time I Went to Hampton Court Palace

On Friday, I made the trek from Waterloo station all the way to Hampton Court Palace. The train remained nearly empty throughout the entire half-hour trip, a pleasant change from the overcrowded Olympic Tube routes inside London. My experience at Hampton Court Palace was about as perfect as anyone could ask - besides my friend and I, there seemed to be no one else there, save for one tour group. We felt like we were on a private tour as we visited the historic palace where monarchs of England from Henry VIII to Charles I and II to William and Mary have resided. There was an extensive exhibit about Henry VIII's early life; we got to see where the Princess Mary once stayed, the great dining hall where the Tudors and their courtiers once feasted, even Henry's wine cellar and kitchens. We were literally the only ones walking through King William III's apartments, and the Lower Orangery, which now houses Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar. An interesting new attraction set up in Queen Mary II's apartments was an art exhibit called "The Wild, the Beautiful, and the Damned." The exhibit featured paintings of dozens of royal mistresses throughout history (particularly those of Charles II, the Merry King) and took two major approaches to the subject: the various manners in which artists portrayed the women (anywhere from explicitly promoting their sexual availability to painting them as Saints and Madonnas), and the social advantages and stigmas the kings' mistresses would have experienced. More impressive than anything we saw inside, however, were the vast and numerous gardens. We saw the formal gardens, with gray gravel walkways and pruned trees shaped cartoonishly like triangles dotting the green lawns. We saw the Tudor rose gardens, full of roses in every imaginable color, still mostly in bloom and cocooned from the outside world behind red brick walls. We saw the privy gardens, full of neatly arranged and manicured hedges and colorful flowers that geometrically complimented the fountain full of coy in the center. We also got to see the Great Vine, a gigantic grape vine that has been producing fruit since it was planted in 1769. The trip to Hampton Court Palace is worth going just to see the breathtaking gardens. Though we spent hours at the Palace, we didn't even see everything there was to see. Hunger soon got the best of us, and we ended up taking the train and the Tube all the way to Stratford, where Olympic Park and the new Westfield Mall are located. Now, I've been to various malls in various big cities in my life, but I have never seen anything quite like the mall in front of Olympic Park. There are touch screen maps located throughout the three-story shopping mall, which houses restaurants serving every kind of food you can think of, a grocery store, and every clothing and shoe store you can possibly imagine. That's not even including "The Street," the outdoor avenue of shops, restaurants and bars that separate the monstrous mall from the gateway to Olympic Park. There was even a movie theater on the very top floor with touch screen kiosks where you could buy tickets and pick out your own seats within the theater. Being the opening day of The Dark Knight Rises (and being curious about how the self-serve kiosks worked) we couldn't resist buying tickets to see it. Highly recommend the film, by the way. After the movie, we went in search for the best store from which to view Olympic Park. Because of security issues, you can't get very close to the actual park without special IDs or tickets, but from some of the department store windows you can get a pretty good view of some of the buildings. As it turns out, the best view is from the Olympic Merchandise store on the top floor. I guess we could have figured that one out... Finally, we finished off our long day with something sweet and familiar - Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Who says you can't have dessert for dinner? Links of the Day: Hampton Court Palace: http://www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace/stories The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned: http://www.hrp.org.uk/NewsAndMedia/hcpresources/TheWildtheBeautifulandtheDamned Westfield Mall at Olympic Park: http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Shopping/Westfield-Stratford-City/41b5a/