Thursday, April 11, 2024

2024 England - April - Norfolk Trip - Day 05 - King Charles’ Place and more.

 April 11th, 2024

Time is clicking by.  Our stay in Norwich concluded today.  It was a nice stay.  The house was nice.  The host gave us £30 back due to our internet issues.  Very kind of her for doing that although I did tell her she did not need to do that.

I got up and went to work.  I needed to buy admission tickets and parking tickets for us at Sandringham Estate…the home of the King…King Charles.  It is one of a few that are truly the Royals home.  They spend every Christmas here.  They were here for Easter we were told.  We paid some money to go into the home and see a small fraction of it.  Apparently it has 29 bedrooms in it.  No one really knows how many rooms it has in the whole house for everything…over 100 they say.  And the guide told us that this house is considered one of the less opulent homes that they own.  We were only able to tour part of the main floor that showed family areas, dining areas, office areas, etc..  We did not see any of their personal quarters and things like that.  Sandringham has an extensive history and was truly built with hunting in mind.  It lies on a beautiful grounds where one could get easily lost and go hunting a lot for birds and hares, as they say.  The guide did say that they might hunt an old ‘stag’ (deer) if one was known to be around.  Anyway, it is kind of fun to say where you’ve walked where royalty recently walked and hung out.

The gardens on the site were ok.  Finely manicured.  And I”m sure that later on they will blossom out.  But we are a bit early.  I think early summer is when you really get to see these gardens in full bloom in England.

After visiting this site, we drove to an English Heritage castle and village called Castle Rising.  It was a nice castle that had a crazy hill\mote that went full around the castle.  The castle was intact fairly well such that you could tell what the rooms all were.  It was not all that big as castles go.  But it was well worth the time to stop and visit it.

We next drove to our hotel to see if we could get in.  It was around 2 PM…a bit early.  But they said our rooms were ready.  So we went in…took a break for a bit…and then headed out into the town of Kings Lynn, where we are staying.  We went to see the cathedral there, Kings Lynn Minster.  It was open and we went in to check it out.  This cathedral apparently has been flooded many times.  Walking in we noticed high water marks that came up to my waist.  And there were many lines so apparently this has happened many times.  The cathedral was a bit run down.  But it had some interesting wood work and all the gorgeous stained glass windows.

After visiting King Lynns Minster, we walked quickly down to St. George’s Guild.  Unfortunately when we got there it was closed.  This is a theater used back in Shakespeare’s day.  It is still actively used and there is a play going on tonight.  Thus it was closed.  We then decided to get some dinner and decided to go to a Pizza Express close to our car park.  We had 1.5 hours left on our meter when we sat down.  After an hour waiting for our food, I went up and said that we had been sitting there an hour.  The guy throwing the pizzas said our food was about to go in the oven.  Really?  I asked if we could get it to go and for the bill.  They gave us 50% off and had it right out as soon as it was cooked.  We barely made it back to our car in time.  Crazy.

Our hotel is fairly nice.  Internet is working great here.  I’m looking forward to a peaceful, quiet night.  We have two more days on this journey before we get back to our flat, do some wash and then head out again for our. 2nd week of journeying around England while the temple is down.

Pictures:

Dave and Tim chillin at the King’s place.  Quite a nice day there today.


This is the group at breakfast in the kitchen.  We are having lots of fun eating together, playing games and so on.  Norwich has been fun.


The spiral staircase found in the castle at Castle Rising.


Denise, Anna and Dave with the Sandringham Estate in the background.  Such a small place.  I feel sorry for the royals.


Queen Elizabeth’s favorite horse.  I believe it is still alive somewhere in London.


A crazy Buda statue in one of the gardens at the Kings residence.  Not sure the significance of this guy being here.


They are putting in new gardens in front of Sandringham Estate.  It’s going to look cool.  In there very middle they have a child like maze made out of the shrubbery.


Castle at Castle Rising.  It was pretty cool.


That’s Dave at the top of one of the staircases at Castle Rising.


Castle Rising from another angle.


This is the baptistery font in King Lynn’s Minster.  A bit smaller than the font we are used to seeing and using.


This was behind the altar in King Lynns Minster.  Made of wood mostly.  It was interesting.  Different from other works we’ve seen in other chapels.


The sign outside King’s Lynn Minster.


King’s Lynn Minster….


When this walkway blooms out, it is going to be pretty cool.  This is at the Kings residence in the north garden.


The group at the King’s place…Sandringham Estate.


Enjoying Castle Rising…


On the banks of the inlet from the sea that comes up into King’s Lynn.



No comments:

Post a Comment