On Nicky's suggestion, we booked a car to take us from her house to the Avis depot in Mayfair where we had to pick up the hire car. We arrived at Avis at about 10am.
The car they supplied us with was an almost-brand-new Vauxhall Vectra hatchback in a bright blue colour. Our bags fitted nicely.
John had lent us his Tom Tom navigation device for our trip around England and Scotland. We spent about 10 minutes getting ourselves familiar with the car and programming the Tom Tom before setting off from the Avis depot through the streets of London.
The Tom Tom made the navigation task much easier but it did give us a few problems along the way.
For example, at one stage she told us to keep in the right lane but the right lane forced us to turn right rather than going straight ahead on the A40. I should have ignored her. Then, to get us back onto the A40, she took us the wrong way up a one-way street and then got us to do a right turn onto the A40 against a no-right-turn sign. We didn't realise at first why the car behind was tooting us.
We headed for Oxford and drove through some parts of the city but couldn't find anywhere to park and so we just continued on.
When we got back in the car, we realised that the Tom Tom was taking us back to London. We had decided to visit Blenheim Palace on our way to Chipping Camden. After a few attempts, we managed to convince her to direct us to the place we wanted to go.
We stopped for lunch at a quaint little tea shop cafe in Woodstock next to the palace grounds.
Blenheim Palace is a magnificent place. The palace is huge and the grounds are vast. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and claims to be the finest palace in Britain.
We joined one of the guided tours inside the palace to hear about the history and to look through the magnificent rooms and to admire the paintings, tapestries, painted ceilings, gold decorations, statues, etc.
The history dates back to the battle of Blenheim in 1704 when the English defeated the French in a battle related to succession to the Spanish throne. The English leader was John Churchill who became a national hero after the battle.
Parliament thanked him by granting him a huge estate at Woodstock and built the palace for him. He became the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
The current Duke of Marlborough (the 11th Duke) still lives in the palace.
Some generations later, Winston Churchill was part of this family. Winston was not the first born son in his generation and so he didn't become the duke.
Winston was born at the palace and was buried in the church near the property. He continued the family tradition of military successes.
Apart from visiting other attractions, we walked through two exhibits about Winston Churchill.
After spending a couple of hours at the palace, we continued on to our B&B at Chipping Camden arriving there by 5:30pm.
Our hosts, Jane and Dave, suggested that we have dinner at a pub in nearby Broad Camden. It was a fascinating experience. A small stone pub on a narrow road in a tiny country town. We enjoyed just talking to the locals and soaking up the atmosphere.
The B&B has WiFi internet access at 54Mbs. I couldn't connect to the internet from our room but it worked fine when I took the laptop downstairs.
Click here to see my photos for this day.
The car they supplied us with was an almost-brand-new Vauxhall Vectra hatchback in a bright blue colour. Our bags fitted nicely.
John had lent us his Tom Tom navigation device for our trip around England and Scotland. We spent about 10 minutes getting ourselves familiar with the car and programming the Tom Tom before setting off from the Avis depot through the streets of London.
The Tom Tom made the navigation task much easier but it did give us a few problems along the way.
For example, at one stage she told us to keep in the right lane but the right lane forced us to turn right rather than going straight ahead on the A40. I should have ignored her. Then, to get us back onto the A40, she took us the wrong way up a one-way street and then got us to do a right turn onto the A40 against a no-right-turn sign. We didn't realise at first why the car behind was tooting us.
We headed for Oxford and drove through some parts of the city but couldn't find anywhere to park and so we just continued on.
When we got back in the car, we realised that the Tom Tom was taking us back to London. We had decided to visit Blenheim Palace on our way to Chipping Camden. After a few attempts, we managed to convince her to direct us to the place we wanted to go.
We stopped for lunch at a quaint little tea shop cafe in Woodstock next to the palace grounds.
Blenheim Palace is a magnificent place. The palace is huge and the grounds are vast. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and claims to be the finest palace in Britain.
We joined one of the guided tours inside the palace to hear about the history and to look through the magnificent rooms and to admire the paintings, tapestries, painted ceilings, gold decorations, statues, etc.
The history dates back to the battle of Blenheim in 1704 when the English defeated the French in a battle related to succession to the Spanish throne. The English leader was John Churchill who became a national hero after the battle.
Parliament thanked him by granting him a huge estate at Woodstock and built the palace for him. He became the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
The current Duke of Marlborough (the 11th Duke) still lives in the palace.
Some generations later, Winston Churchill was part of this family. Winston was not the first born son in his generation and so he didn't become the duke.
Winston was born at the palace and was buried in the church near the property. He continued the family tradition of military successes.
Apart from visiting other attractions, we walked through two exhibits about Winston Churchill.
After spending a couple of hours at the palace, we continued on to our B&B at Chipping Camden arriving there by 5:30pm.
Our hosts, Jane and Dave, suggested that we have dinner at a pub in nearby Broad Camden. It was a fascinating experience. A small stone pub on a narrow road in a tiny country town. We enjoyed just talking to the locals and soaking up the atmosphere.
The B&B has WiFi internet access at 54Mbs. I couldn't connect to the internet from our room but it worked fine when I took the laptop downstairs.
Click here to see my photos for this day.
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