Open gardens, Hampton court and other places.

Once a year London has and event called Open Garden Squares. There are about 200 private gardens for this two day event, we were only able to see about ten in the time we had.

When we moved over here we saw all these beautiful gardens with fences around them. Only the people that live in the surrounding houses have access to them. 

Some were over 3 acres and some were just small as an alley way.

An occasional large statue 

and some small ones.

This one is Edward Square, which is just a few blocks from our house. Leanne goes by it just about every day walking Coach.

It has a grass tennis court that we would love to play on. 

A few of the squares like this one had large trees and shrubs on the outside. Once inside you could not see the houses that surrounded it. 

Time for this old guy to take a break. 

This was a walkway around another garden. On the left was the road and on the right was an open area. 

There was also a lot of history to some of the squares. During WWII one was used as an army barracks and a place to park tanks. Another had a air raid shelter that is still there under a tennis court. Also during the war the metal fencing was taken down and used for the war effort.

Some of the squares had entertainment for the kids. 

This square added a Punch and Judy show.

and some had entertainment for the adults. This one had music, food and drinks.

As I had mentioned before some had statues in them, here are a few.

This statue is called Girl with Doves

This is a statue of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

Leanne walked by these on her walk with Coach. This first one is from the weird category. 

This is called "Still Water" and is 33 feet tall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Water_(sculpture)

Also on Sunday my sister Mary and her group came back from Paris. We had a nice dinner and a few glasses of wine---change that to a few bottles.

On Monday Leanne was off to work and i would be taking my sisters group to Hampton Court

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace 

Leanne had been to the grounds around Hampton court a while back. Today we would be going in the building itself.

The first part was the kitchen and cooking area, the open ovens were massive.

This chef was cooking two roast on a spit. He was turning it the entire time we were there. That was the cooks job, just turn it all day . 

The British are known for there meat pies, back in the day this is how the food was served. The crust of the pie was more of a serving plate. The person would take the top off the pie and eat what was inside and discarding the crust.

This was a series of charcoal stoves.  

The Dining area, very ornate wood work in the ceiling. This was the Henry the VIII wing of the Palace, it also had a chapel but we could not take pictures. 

Another section, there seemed to be rooms everywhere. The last king to live there was George II in the 1700's  In the 1800's it was open to the public. 

My sister Mary and her group headed back to the states on Tuesday morning. It was great to have them over. 

Tuesday night we were invited to the Leighton House Museum for an open house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leighton_House_Museum

He was a famous British painter and his house (now a museum) is just across the street from our house. We had not been there yet, Leanne and I have a running joke that it was to far to walk to.

The event was brought together by the friends of Leighton House and was a catered  event.

All the beautiful people were there. 

We did not know that there was even an open area behind the house. 

This statue was in the open area behind the house, the British love there statues.

Thursday night we would go see the Opera La Boheme at Opera Holland Park. This is held in the park that is a short walk from our house. It was another beautiful opera, and a nice night to walk home. We have three opera's and one ballet to go to this summer at this venue. 

Saturday we would do another walk from Leanne's Secret London walks book. 

This is Sussex Place, It had 26 town houses when it was built in 1822. Today it's the London Graduate School of Business Studies. Across the street from the building is Regent Park. 

This guy always a day out, he'll walk till he drops. 

Still walking around the outskirts of Regent Park we came upon the Cambridge gate. This was built in 1878, to the right of it is Chester Terrace built in 1820. When ever we read up on the buildings built in London there are two names that always come up, Christoper Wren and John Nash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wren

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nash_(architect)

This section of houses were designed by Nash.

The street behind this beautiful building was the Regent's Park Barracks. Built in the 19th century it now houses a number of army units.

This was a small street with houses that look out of place for the area. Our book says they look like something from a Jane Austen novel and they do.

This tree has been here a long time.

As you can see it has grown into the fence. It looks like someone pored the tree into the fence.

An archway to a row of houses. If you look back thru our blog there are a lot of archways. I think whenever they had extra material they built an archway. 

Just a good looking Pub. It was not open so we could not partake in an adult beverage. 

This is St. Pancras garden and graveyard.

A statue in the middle of the gardens

This is St. Pancras old Church, not sure where the New church is.

A Saxon alter from 600 was found here. 

Sunday was a day trip to Winchester and Alresford. 

We arrived in Winchester by train and took a cab to the town of Alresford. We hoped to see some lavender fields in this town but it was not going to happen this time. So we went to plan B and checked out the town.

At an out of the way place we found this driveway to a house. 

The town like all the other we have see have some very old buildings, this one dates to 1767

Walking down a side street we came upon this beautiful yard. 

From there Leanne found a lane that turned into a trail. Sometimes i'm not sure where she is taking me. The trail ended up running next to a stream that was only ankle deep. Around a corner was this fairy tale thatched cottage complete with swans. It was such a beautiful sight that neither of us noticed the thatched roof on the cottage. The water ran under a portion of the house so it must have been a mill at one time.

An open field from were we had walked.

We caught a bus back to Winchester and were dropped off in front of the 18th century Guildhall of Winchester.

Another town with old buildings and closed streets to walk down.

And a some interesting art work.

This is a water trough memorial for the horses that were killed in the South African wars of 1899-1902. There are a lot of war memorials all over the UK from wars i never heard of. 

History, lot of it over here.

Well its the start of Wimbledon, we will be watching some tennis the next two weeks.

Prague, family and tennis

We spent a weekend in the beautiful city of Prague. It was an easy to get around as most of the signs were in English.  

On our first day we did a walk thru the old town of Prague and  started on Wenceslas Square. The square is named after Wenceslas the Duke of Bohemia. He's also famous from the Christmas carol good King Wenceslas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_I,_Duke_of_Bohemia

This is the statue of him at the top of the square.

and the view of the square from his statue. This is where protesters assembled during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. During the protest the people would shake there keys at the communist officials. This was there way of telling them "goodbye its time to go home".  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

The Hotel Evropa an Art Nouveau building is halfway down the square built in 1889. It was used in the Tom Cruse movie Mission Impossible. 

A shop that sells special tobacco---i think you know what the mean by special.

An on to other odd things. We found this statue of good king Wenceslaus hanging from the ceiling riding an upside down horse. These Czech's are funny people.

We came upon these statues in a garden and Leanne took a liking to them.  Not sure what the meaning of it was.

Our gear of choice as we do our walks, a back pack and a mule to hall it.

One of the many beautiful streets with a good looking woman.

A side street with walkways connecting the buildings. 

The Municipal House, this was another Art Nouveau building. This was built in the early 1900. We stopped at the coffee shop on the out side of this building---and some sweets. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_House

The Powder tower is one of the original gates to the city. It stored the gun powder and is over 500 years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Tower

Groups will come here to party for just about any reason. They go from bar to bar all day and night. As they walked down the street there was lots of singing and chanting.  I think it was for there soccer team.

Heading into the old town square.

As we stood in the square we did a 360 degree look at the buildings. This is the Old Town Hall built in the 14th century.

This Astronomical clock was built in 1350 and still works. It does a lot of things it is best described on the web site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock

The yellow building is the Church of St. Nicholas and the statue is the Jan Hus Memorial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus

The Tyn church which i will show you later and a row of colorful buildings. Most of the buildings in Prague were brightly colored like these are.

From there it was a walk to the Charles bridge down more streets and past a few trolley cars.

The walk was enjoyable but a bit crowded. 

A view o Prague Castle from the beginning of Charles bridge.

The Charles bridge was finished in the 15th century in crosses the Vitava river. It was built at the time of  King Charles IV and was the only river crossing till 1841.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge

Another view of the Castle

One of the many statues on the bridge. This one shows a prisoner in a jail.

As we got to the other side we saw this water run mill store. Its now a restaurant.

And now for a few odd pictures from  Prague.

Lee's foot is not odd just one of those pictures you take when you can keep your finger off the button. At the end of the day we delete all the pictures that show nothing at all. And have a good laugh at some of them.

Do you think a 9 euro massage is really going to be good?

This statue of two guys re leaving themselves was in the middle of a small square. A lot of questions go thru you mind when you see something like this. Is that doing what i think its doing, who agreed to this, who paid for it?

And then this, first the make a statue of it then they have to tell you not to do it. Maybe there's a big bladder problem in Prague.

City's always have some interesting statues, do not land in a parachute near this one.

Heading back down a few streets to cross the river.

Another view of the Charles bridge in the back ground.

Next on the walk was the Jewish quarter of Prague. Our first stop was at the Pinkas Synagogue built in 1535.  On the walls inside are the names of 77,297 Czech Jews sent to the gas chambers. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkas_Synagogue

When you see the names and dates of entire family's its a real sobering sight to see.  

Out side was the old Jewish cemetery. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jewish_Cemetery,_Prague

From 1439 till 1787 this was the only burial ground for the Jews. Over time the graves had to be piled on top of each other, sometimes 7 or 8 deep. 

Back to the old town square we were able to get a few good night shots of the The Church of Mother of God before Týn or the Tyn church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Our_Lady_before_T%C3%BDn

Walt Disney must have gotten some ideas from this building.

And a few fireworks to end the day.

I told Leanne i had them done just for her---she didn't believe it either.

The next day was a visit to Prague Castle the largest castle in the world. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle

Inside the castle grounds is St. Vitus Cathedral 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vitus_Cathedral

We had visited it on Saturday, i think everyone else visiting Prague was there also.  

We bumped and were bumped every step we took, it was very hard to see everything. 

Outside in the square was statue of St. George slaying a dragon. He must have been good at it because we didn't see any dragons while we were there. 

 Vladislav Hall, built around 1500 was a room in the castle used for large public events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Hall

A view of the back of the church and more people.

The Czech people must have been short or didn't know how to build tall doors.

Gargoyles, lot of them 

Kids must have loved seeing the monsters looking down on them as they entered the church.

Another view of the church 

Saturday night we were off to the opera to see Carmen at the National Theater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Theatre_(Prague)

We had great seats and the show was wonderful.

The next day we would leave but not before a great breakfast. Leanne ordered scrambled eggs with beetroot. It was one of those things you have to order just to say you tried it. It was delicious. 

Prague was a great place to visit but it always great to be home. I signed up for a sourdough bread class this week. It was fun and i was able to bring the loaves i made home with me. I plan on making our own bread, or at least try.

This week we had another family member visit us. My sister Mary, brother in law Greg, nephew Josh and his partner Travis came on Thursday. After running all over London doing the tourist thing on Friday, we slowed things down and went to the Holland Park Opera that evening. It was a nice venue as it was just a short walk from our house.   

Saturday Mary and Greg did a tour of Parliament and a tour of Westminster Abby before calling it a day. Dinner and some cards were in store for the rest of the night,

On Sunday after church we were on our way to the Churchill war room. And as luck would have it there was a parade for the Queens 90 birthday.  The entrance to the War room was right behind us.

And being it was raining we were able to get a front row spot to stand.

On Mary and Greg were off to France and Josh and Travis were off to Scotland. They will all return on Sunday and stay one more day with us before they head home. 

As for Leanne and I we were able to go to a grass tennis tournament that was less than a mile from our house.

They had rain the day before and more rain was called for the day we were there. To make up some of the games they opened up more courts. This is where we stood to watch a pro event, a singles match was on our left and doubles on the right. 

Can't get closer to the action than this. We were able to watch one set on each court and then the sky opened up and the rains came.

 Lucky for us we made it to the champagne tent before it got real bad. We would be in there for about an hour before the rains stopped. There would be a delay in the play so we were off to the food area

Not sure if ham goes with champagne, but it did today. 

 Strawberry's and clotted cream goes with anything. 

Inspecting the courts to see if there ready for play.

And there playing again, Leanne seemed to like this guys legs.

 We were able to watch a couple of matches and have already made plans to be back here next year.