Today we toured Blenheim Palace and Oxford! We started at Blenheim palace, where we met our tour guide Tim! He also guided us through Stratford-Upon-Avon last week. The palace is home to the twelfth Duke of Marlborough, and is a historical home for the royal family. It was originally built for the family of the first duke. It was partially funded with support from Queen Anne, until she and the duke’s wife had a falling out. Because of this and the palace’s sizes, it took almost 20 years to build! This is also the family home and birthplace of Winston Churchill, and is named after his role in the battle of Blenheim.
To start our visit, we walked through some of the palace’s inner rooms. There was a fashion exhibit set up inside, which is not normally part of the tour but still interesting to look at. The architecture of the palace and the art lining the walls was incredibly detailed. My favorite painting featured a dog with horse hooves instead of paws. Tim said this was a mistake by the artist, who probably didn’t know what a dog looked like. I can see why it took so long to build because every room was covered in detail. On top of this, there were expansive grounds with fountains and decorations. There’s even a maze, but unfortunately we didn’t get to go in because we were short on time. That’s probably for the best though; I don’t have the best sense of direction.
After that we headed to Oxford! I was very excited about this as a Harry Potter fan. We visited several locations that Hogwarts is based on, including the steps up to the dining hall where a scene in Sorcerer’s Stone was actually filmed. We toured the dining hall and Christ Church College. The church was full of beautiful architecture and very detailed stained glass windows. We saw these locations by taking a “media tour”, which had tablets and headphones that presented information as we walked. I felt a bit silly with the headphones on, but I liked the unique format of the tour.
After this, Tim guided us around other areas of the school. Something interesting he spoke about was different colleges within the school. When students apply, they apply to a specific college. Unlike different schools in the US, which are grouped by major, here you can study any subject no matter your college. These seemed more like social communities, where you live with other students and work with specific mentors within your college. This was a great look into the university side of the United Kingdom’s education system. When we asked him, our tour guide also told us about his acting career, which was quite impressive. Tim, if you see this, I’m very sorry we were staring at your name tag, and thank you so much for some great tours!
After this great day of sightseeing, we took the bus back to the hotel. Now we have a free evening to prepare for our presentations at BCU tomorrow afternoon. I can’t believe we only have two more days left in Birmingham! I feel like we just got here, but we’ve definitely been making the most of our time. See you tomorrow!
On the grounds of Blenheim Palace
Walking tour of Oxford