Hampton Court

Prelude: I don't know if anyone recognises this, but if you've been a fan of James Bond, you should. This building not only featured in The World Is Not Enough as the headquarters of MI6 (You see Bond explode out the front in a powerboat after a villain), but is the real-life headquarters of MI5. Pretty cool. In this day and age I almost expected to be approached by somber, faceless men wanting a quiet word.

Anita, Jus and myself all trekked out to Vauxhall station, prompting Monopoly flashbacks and caught the train to the London borough of Richmond upon Thames, a quaint little British river village with one of the most impressive castles in the UK.

Hampton Court has an absolutely fascinating history. In 1514 the Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, aquired the lease to the then-modest property, converting it over a period of years to a magnificent castle. Without going into the whole messy saga, political intrigue abounded, causing Wolsey's meteoric rise - and even more spectacular fall. Wolsey had the misfortune to tie his fortunes to Henry VIII, tempting fate with political intrigue and ostentatious displays of wealth.


In the end, he fell foul of Henry VIII over his most famous attribute - that of dispensing with wives. Over the course of his downfall, Wolsey was stripped of Hampton Court, York Place and even the tomb he had designed for himself.






Over the years since, Hampton Court has played host to Royalty and Nobility with extensive renovations that reflect the style and era of many different periods in English history.



It was sunny when we arrived, with a weirdly incongrous ice-skating rink setup outside the gates of the castle. In keeping with its long tradition of rebuilding, the front fascia was undergoing renovations. We were ushered in after purchasing our tickets by guides dressed in period costume, getting into their roles with just a little more enthusiasm than a crap weekend job would normally require.

The audio tours were excellent, after our initial confusion with playing back the right tour for the right moment. Filled with vast amounts of information, people wandered the many varied halls of the great palace almost oblivious to their fellow tourists. Some of the outter areas have re-creations of daily life, such as this abbatoir setting.

It's a great day's outing. Unfortunately, the don't allow photography inside, so I was only able to sneak a few shots out of one of the windows of the bedroom of one of King Henry's wives.

It's truly incredible the varience in architechture throughout the palace. It's no wonder Henry took it for himself.

Tonight is our last night in London. Tomorrow we proceed with the only part of our trip that's actually been planned: We fly to Austria.

The next couple of days...

...were something of a blur. We've both been tired, recovering from 144 (isn't that technically a 'gross'?) hours with only a few of those involving sleep.

We're on a bit of a budget, something that London isn't particularly forgiving of. In light of that, we're avoiding spending too much money before we leave on Sunday to head into Austria. We did, however, get to see "The Producers" live at Drury Lane. To be frank, we're just lucky such a great show was playing - out of respect for Monty Python I probably have seen whatever was playing. Great show. Jus will never know. She was asleep before the second act was underway.

We've been wandering around Covent Garden a fair bit and popped over to the SAE College in London to check out the cavernous catacombs of my English co-workers.




There's an ethereal beauty about some parts of London in early winter evenings. The days are so much shorter than winter days in Australia, throwing my body-clock off entirely. There's a lot to like about London, despite the fact that everything here costs exactly the same numerical figure as in Australia - except that it's in pounds, which is a killer.

An odd thing happened to us today as we were waiting for Anita to join us at a Chinese restaurant before the show.

This small, dark-haird young woman with glasses and a red coat, not unlike Justine's own, was crying desperately on the sidewalk. We were a little wary at first - there's plenty of scams to be had and neither of us could afford to be taken in. While we tried to find out what was wrong, we both watched each other's backs in case this was a distraction of some sort.

It turned out the young woman was French and had come over with her boyfriend and to work. She was desperately lonely, had very little money and couldn't find a job. Christmas was coming up and she knew absolutely no-one. I think she just wanted a little human contact. Justine and I spoke to her for some time, about her father in France, saying that she should perhaps go back there for Christmas. She was reluctant to say too much. I think that at the moment we encountered her all the pressures of being alone in a foreign city far from home suddenly became too much to bear. I've experienced this sort of thing before, where I just have to be out among people, to feel that I'm connected - not matter how tenuous that connection might be.

Tomorrow Anita is taking us to Hampton Court.