Monday, April 14 marked our first full day to explore England.* Our day began at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. It was a majestic place, almost rivaling Versailles in France. My favorite room in the entire house was the library, of course. After the guided tour, we explored an exhibit on the estate during WWI and looked around the gardens, which featured some beautiful red tulips.
After leaving Blenheim Palace, we drove through the Cotswolds. It was beautiful country with rolling hills, grazing sheep, and more fields of yellow rapeseed flowers. We arrived in a small town called Burford around 1:00 that afternoon. Mom and I ate lunch at a bakery (we split a Cornish pastry and quiche) and then enjoyed looking around the town's many shops. We even had the opportunity to look through the wares at a local bazaar.
We drove on to Bampton that afternoon. Bampton is a small village with one really big claim to fame: It's the shooting location for many of the exterior scenes in Downton Abbey. Our guide Sally walked us around the village to many of the locations, including the hospital (library in real life), Mrs. Crowley's house, the pub, the post office, and the church where Mary and Matthew get married.
Once we left Bampton, we came back to Oxford for the evening. Mom and I soon set out again and walked over to Blackwell's, a wonderful bookstore located close to our hotel. We both enjoyed looking around, and I purchased two Jane Austen books as well as a Pride and Prejudice print. After visiting a few other shops, we ate at an old pub that now served Thai food. We were thrilled to discover that Pad Thai and fried rice taste delicious on both sides of the pond.
*Unfortunately, our day got off to a stinky start when a dog left us a "welcome to England" present on the bus. We had to wait until arriving at Blenheim Palace to take care of it, but even once it was removed, we kept smelling it whenever we passed certain members of our group.
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