Day One

Monday May 1st arrived, and I had a lovely reception by the tour manager and Alison Weir, the writer, later in the morning, after breakfast. I got all my belongings together and got on the bus ready to leave London and start this tour! There were 34 participants including myself; we had four Aussies, and all the rest were Americans. It proved to be a very good group. Everyone mostly got along, and I made some nice friends. I had a great bus mate, with a great sense of humor, so that made the bus much more fun than it might have been! We laughed together throughout the tour.

One of the historians, whose name is Michael Jones, a specialist in military history and also the co-author of the book on the discovery of Richard III (a whole other fascinating subject, if you are interested) spoke on the bus about “chivalry,” which was the tour’s theme. We then arrived at the grounds of Otford Palace in Kent, which are beautiful ruins located in a lovely village, and at one time were as important as Hampton Court to Henry VIII. It was nice to get off the bus and walk around.  

The remains of Otford Palace

This was followed by Alison Weir speaking about Hever Castle, where we would be staying for the next 10 days.  Oh, my heart be still; I love Hever!  We got to the castle in Kent and checked into the part of the castle which serves as a Bed & Breakfast, followed by a drinks reception in the castle courtyard with a musician. We then had a welcome dinner in the Long Gallery. The exciting part of this dinner was that we were joined by the curators of Hever Castle -- Owen Emerson and Kate McCaffrey. Owen was at my table and was a complete Anne Boleyn fanatic, so it was so interesting to listen to him.  Of course, by then everyone was tired, but this tour stuck to its schedule, and at about 10:00 pm there was a visiting historian named Richard, who came in and talked about "magnificence." This mainly had to do with different items throughout Europe that belonged to various kings and queens, which were of great historical value.  It was very interesting but, again, I was tired and happy to drop into bed later.

Fell in love with my room

My lovely view of the back gardens