Monday, 28 September 2009

My last day in Lincolnshire.

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early and caught a bus from Spalding into Peterborough. From there, I took a bus that was headed towards Stamford and got off at Burghley House. The house is surrounded by 160 acres of land that is used as a large deer park. They claim that this herd of fallow deer have an ancient pedigree and have been roaming on this land for the past 450 years. The deer greet you as you come onto the grounds.

This house, which was built in the mid 1500's is the largest house of the Elizabethan age and has accommodated many different Earls and Marquesses of Exeter. The house has also been used to film movies such as Pride and Prejudice and The Da Vinci Code.

The ornately decorated house has been well maintained so that the colors and textures of the fabrics and paints used throughout the house hundreds of years ago are still vibrant. The rooms are set up so that you have to walk through each one to get to the other and then come back out right where you started. Somewhere along the line, there was a corridor built along the inside of the house, leading from the courtyard with a door into each room to provide some privacy but all of the beds still have the huge dark curtains which can be pulled around them since it is possibly to have people walking through at any given time.
The inside of the house was incredible! I was having trouble deciding how to best take pictures of it all with the dim light inside but it turns out you aren't actually allowed to take pictures inside the house so, unfortunately, I don't have very many ; ) and the ones I do have aren't of the coolest rooms because there were too many people/video cameras around for me to discreetly take a photo or two.

This photo is of the barrel vaulted Roman stairs and is the only remaining original staircase at Burghley.

Wash room...
A garden was recently built on the grounds called the "Garden of Surprises." It was inspired by drawings and descriptions of the some of the original gardens that were here but I think it was really designed to entertain, especially if there are little kids around. There are water features every where and if you're not careful, you could walk right over, under, or through something that's about to shoot water at you. Take for example this one here. This is the exit. You pretty much just have to stand and wait for it to stop. It wasn't the warmest of days but I had fun watching some little kids play in the different water fountains.

There's also a huge sculpture park. I'm sure that I didn't even see all of it. It really is something that takes time (and a picnic!) but the park is beautiful just to walk around and I probably got more out of the scenery anyway than I would have out of seeing every single sculpture they have there. This is a picture of the lake with some sculptures that were carved right out of some tree stumps growing out of the lake.


After spending a couple of hours at Burghley House, I proceeded to walk to Stamford. I had not idea how long of a walk it would be but it only ended up taking about a half hour and I enjoyed it. The countryside is very pretty and it was a nice quiet walk.


Stamford! Supposedly a very historic town... the architecture is beautiful but at this point I was getting pretty tired so I didn't spend a ton of time there. I walked around and saw all of the buildings and walked through the market area and stopped to buy a couple of clementines but found the bus station shortly there after.


Still feeling rather tired but wanting to make the most of my time and the sunshine that had just come out, I decided to walk around Peterborough a bit. I'm really glad that I went and found the cathedral. It really was magnificent. I got there in time to sit in on the last half hour of the Evensong service. It was relaxing to just sit inside of that fantastic building and listen to people singing.


While walking through the market place I heard some music and decided to go check it out. I found these people jumping around with bells tied to their shins and waving handkerchiefs while a couple of people played the accordion and fiddle off to the side. I had not idea what was going on but it was entertaining and they seemed to be having a really good time. I heard a lady mention that one of them was her husband so I asked her what it was all about. I guess it's called Morris dancing and people do it in the States too, I've just never heard of it. Before I knew it, I was pulled into the craziness. The guys said they needed volunteers for this dance. When the music started I looked around and said, "but I'm the only one who looks different." and he replied, "well, I guess that makes you exceptional!" He passed me a handkerchief and we hopped around to the music. It was ridiculous but it made me laugh so I was okay with it.



I walked down to the river and spent a bit of time in the park before stopping in Starbucks to buy another one of those divine little chocolate-caramel-shortbread things and getting back on the bus. The bus rides are really quite enjoyable just because it's so pretty and there's so much to look at. And when I say so much sometimes I really just mean cows and horses and sheep and grass and clouds but it really is nice. I'm definitely glad that I took some time to see these different places. I would love to go back to all of them and have someone go with me. I miss having someone next to me all of the time to talk to and take pictures with. Sometimes I have to talk to myself for fear I'll forget how my voice sounds! I'm not used to going such long stretches without talking--as you all know from personal experience and as is evidenced by my unbelievably lengthy blog posts. There are about a zillion more pictures that I'll put on facebook if you're interested!

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