Tuesday, just like every other day this week, started out with a train. This particular train was going to Oxford. Our main goal there was Blenheim Palace. Blenheim Palace has always been the home of the Dukes of Marlborough, which also happen to be the Churchill-Spencer family, such as Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Diana Spencer (now known as Princess Diana). The house was given to the first Duke as a gift in honor of his leading to victory at the Battle of Blenheim against the French. The house is still lived in and owned by the family, more specifically right now, the 11th Duke of Marlborough. It was kind of a drab day (rainy, windy…how it’s been since we got here), so we decided to do all the gardens first in case the rain got worse.
There is so much ground at Blenheim…2100 acres to be exact. There are multiple gardens situated all over the lands. My favorite garden by far, not just of Blenheim, but of all the gardens we’ve seen, was the Secret Garden. It was so beautiful. It was such a perfect setting, and there was so much attention to little details that made such a huge difference. It wasn’t a laid
out garden like the French ones, instead it was walkways and paths laid out through very natural looking landscapes. There was a stream running through that occasionally went over a man-made waterfall. It was so pretty. We also went into the Rose Garden, which is pretty self explanatory. The roses were arranged going outward in a circle from a center point, and were all different colors. I have never seen so many different colors of roses. We tried to go up to the cascades, but apparently they were under construction, so we headed back to the house. The palace was designed by architect Sir John Vanbrugh. When he designed it, he designed it in perspective, so it is best viewed from a distance. It was still amazing to view it from right in front of it thought. The tour of the palace was split into two different sections. The first section that we went throug
h was the State Rooms. This was the normal rooms of the palace, like bedrooms, dining rooms, halls, etc. The most famous person to have lived at Blenheim was Sir Winston Churchill. We got to see the room where he was born and some of his clothing from childhood. We also got to see original copies of letters he had written to his father when he was in school. Another famous resident was Lady Diana Spencer (later Princess Diana). We got to see a copy of the wedding announcement for her marriage to the Prince of Wales. Because of all of these things, Blenheim was not only really interesting architecturally, but also historically. The family of the Duke of Marlborough still lives in the palace now, in the same rooms as the first Duke and Duchess. Wouldn’t that be nice? Blenheim is a pretty popular place, being used to film movies such as Indiana Jones (Last Crusade) and Harry Potter 5. After the house, we took a little train (like the ones at the zoo, and I love them!) to get to other parts of the grounds, where we went into the Butterfly House. This is exactly what it sounds like…a greenhouse filled with different plants and butterfly species. It was such a different thing to see at a place like Blenheim
. The butterflies were all different sizes and colors. One of them had about an 8 inch wing span…it was huge. We also went into an attraction area that had a hedge maze! Apparently, it’s the second largest hedge maze in the world. It was so much fun; way better than any of the corn mazes I’ve been too…Kylee and Megan really got lost though. I got out of the maze pretty quick, so I went in the café and got a cup of tea (really, just to warm up…it was freezing) and wait for everyone else. We started to head back to the main house so that we could catch a bus to go back to London…and found out that the last little train back to the house left at 5:30…this was at 5:35. So we had to walk up the road back to the main gates (about a mile or so). When we were almost to the gates, some people that had just walked up there stopped us to tell us that the gates were closed and that we would have to go around to get out of the grounds. So, we took the scenic tour past the bridge and the lake and across the rest of the grounds, out the side gate, through the village, and finally to the bus stop…just to miss the bus by 30 seconds (it was pulling away when we were trying to cross the street). Luckily, another bus was coming about 5 minutes later, so we didn’t have to wait long. The bus took us as far as city center, and then we walked the rest of the way to the train station. We barely made it to the last train back to London by 15 minutes. After the fiasco of getting there, we finally made it back to London and called it a night.
Tuesday, just like every other day this week, started out with a train. This particular train was going to Oxford. Our main goal there was Blenheim Palace. Blenheim Palace has always been the home of the Dukes of Marlborough, which also happen to be the Churchill-Spencer family, such as Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Diana Spencer (now known as Princess Diana). The house was given to the first Duke as a gift in honor of his leading to victory at the Battle of Blenheim against the French. The house is still lived in and owned by the family, more specifically right now, the 11th Duke of Marlborough. It was kind of a drab day (rainy, windy…how it’s been since we got here), so we decided to do all the gardens first in case the rain got worse. 
There is so much ground at Blenheim…2100 acres to be exact. There are multiple gardens situated all over the lands. My favorite garden by far, not just of Blenheim, but of all the gardens we’ve seen, was the Secret Garden. It was so beautiful. It was such a perfect setting, and there was so much attention to little details that made such a huge difference. It wasn’t a laid 
out garden like the French ones, instead it was walkways and paths laid out through very natural looking landscapes. There was a stream running through that occasionally went over a man-made waterfall. It was so pretty. We also went into the Rose Garden, which is pretty self explanatory. The roses were arranged going outward in a circle from a center point, and were all different colors. I have never seen so many different colors of roses. We tried to go up to the cascades, but apparently they were under construction, so we headed back to the house. The palace was designed by architect Sir John Vanbrugh. When he designed it, he designed it in perspective, so it is best viewed from a distance. It was still amazing to view it from right in front of it thought. The tour of the palace was split into two different sections. The first section that we went throug
h was the State Rooms. This was the normal rooms of the palace, like bedrooms, dining rooms, halls, etc. The most famous person to have lived at Blenheim was Sir Winston Churchill. We got to see the room where he was born and some of his clothing from childhood. We also got to see original copies of letters he had written to his father when he was in school. Another famous resident was Lady Diana Spencer (later Princess Diana). We got to see a copy of the wedding announcement for her marriage to the Prince of Wales. Because of all of these things, Blenheim was not only really interesting architecturally, but also historically. The family of the Duke of Marlborough still lives in the palace now, in the same rooms as the first Duke and Duchess. Wouldn’t that be nice? Blenheim is a pretty popular place, being used to film movies such as Indiana Jones (Last Crusade) and Harry Potter 5. After the house, we took a little train (like the ones at the zoo, and I love them!) to get to other parts of the grounds, where we went into the Butterfly House. This is exactly what it sounds like…a greenhouse filled with different plants and butterfly species. It was such a different thing to see at a place like Blenheim
. The butterflies were all different sizes and colors. One of them had about an 8 inch wing span…it was huge. We also went into an attraction area that had a hedge maze! Apparently, it’s the second largest hedge maze in the world. It was so much fun; way better than any of the corn mazes I’ve been too…Kylee and Megan really got lost though. I got out of the maze pretty quick, so I went in the café and got a cup of tea (really, just to warm up…it was freezing) and wait for everyone else. We started to head back to the main house so that we could catch a bus to go back to London…and found out that the last little train back to the house left at 5:30…this was at 5:35. So we had to walk up the road back to the main gates (about a mile or so). When we were almost to the gates, some people that had just walked up there stopped us to tell us that the gates were closed and that we would have to go around to get out of the grounds. So, we took the scenic tour past the bridge and the lake and across the rest of the grounds, out the side gate, through the village, and finally to the bus stop…just to miss the bus by 30 seconds (it was pulling away when we were trying to cross the street). Luckily, another bus was coming about 5 minutes later, so we didn’t have to wait long. The bus took us as far as city center, and then we walked the rest of the way to the train station. We barely made it to the last train back to London by 15 minutes. After the fiasco of getting there, we finally made it back to London and called it a night.
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