There still a bit of a farm here, though milking tourists is the main business. I somehow do not think that the sheep are particularly impressed by spending their short lives surrounded by monuments to the English victory over the French in The War of the Spanish Succession. But then again, maybe they have a great appreciation for history than we know.
The house itself is certainly impressive. All the guidebooks pronounce it to be "the finest example of English Baroque architecture."
The yellow stone is quite handsome. It's some kind of sandstone, though, and when you think about it is should have been obvious to the architects that such a soft stone is not a good choice for a cold wet climate. Trying to maintain this place over the years bankrupted the family a couple time. The only reason it is not a complete heap of rubble right now is that the Ninth Duke, Winston Churchill's cousin, married a Vandebilt and used the huge dowry extracted from that family to restore the building. The two evidently loathed each other and sat at dinner with an enormous silver sculpture on the middle of the table so that they would not even have to look at each other.
Inside it's one enormous room after another covered with tapestries and filled with old English and French furniture. It's impressive at first, but gets monotonous after a while. You also realize that the very best pieces have been sold to museums like the Met or the Getty, so the place is filled mostly with second rate art. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, though John did try to take a couple. The lighting is not that great, so the pictures were a little disappointing. So all of you are spared looking at Belgian tapestries or French tables.
The gardens were a little more interesting, but our time was running short and we could not do more than just take a quick look here.
After leaving Blenheim, we headed west through Oxfordshire into the Cotswolds. The Tom Tom was pretty helpful here. Thanks to its "Search by Post Code" function, we found the farmhouse where the woman who arranged our tour lives. There was already another American couple there and we introduced ourselves and sat down to bread, ham, cheese, and salad for lunch. The other couple just recently moved to Auburn, Alabama, Both are in their 30's. Aaron is a newly-minted Ph.D from the University of Chicago and teaches modern American history at Auburn. Susan works for The New Teacher Project, one of those foundation-funded research groups which issues hand-wringing reports over the dire state of American primary and secondary education.
We left the car at the farm. Julia, our guide, took us into Chipping Campden where we found our bed and breakfast. The accomodations are frankly disappointing for what we paid, but I'll see what the next one is like. But Chipping Campden is gorgeous. It's so cute it makes Carmel look like Detroit. I'll take some pictures today and send those tomorrow. After dropping off the luggage, we went back to the farmhouse where we picked up our bikes. Our first stop was Hidcote Manor, possibly the most famous garden in England. Again, it's so cute it almost induced insulin shock.
The rest of our ride was fun, sometimes confusing, and occasionally grueling (there was one absolutely brutal hill though it had a stunning view of the Warwickshire countryside).
We met up in the evening with Aaron and Susan. We had dinner in the evening at the Eight Bells, one of this new generation of English pubs which have transformed themselves from smoky beer hall to gastronomic destination. The food was really quite good, and we had fun talking to those young people.
Tomorrow we have a long (30 mile) ride and it is wet and misty. Think Seattle but a little warmer. The report may be grumpy...
