Tale #15

Saturday

Well, today was another amazing day in London! The day began with going to the Hampton Court Palace, where King Henry VIII (of 6 wives and anglican church fame) lived part of the year and housed his noble guests (sometimes 600 at a time!). The palace was, of course, beautiful and huge (see picture).

Among the things we got to see were a cool tour of the kitchens where we saw what types of food people would eat in the 16th century and how they were cooked, and a funny/interesting series of skits where men in women in full costume acted out the events preceding King Henry's final marriage.
The highlight, however, of the palace, were the beautiful gardens! The hedges were trimmed beautifully all over the place, there were many beautiful fountains, and what I'm sure were beautiful statues, but were covered with trash bags for the winter.

The Main Garden


A courtyard

After a 1.5 hour tube ride to the Barbican theatre, Jon and I went to a pre-concert talk for the BBC Symphony Orchestra concert we were seeing this evening. The talk was less enlightening than I had hoped, as it turned out to be more of a skit than a lecture...
The concert itself, however, was awesome. They played 4 pieces, including my favorite piece from the 20th century (Le tombeau de Couperin by Ravel). The pianist on the Ravel, Angela Hewitt, was very good. The other pieces that were played were a piece by Dutilleux, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. They were all very beautifully played, and shared a 20th century/impressionist style that was wonderful.