Defender Henry day 5

An amazing start to the day when I pulled back the curtains at the Queens hotel on Southsea Common and there was an Aircraft carrier going right past into the harbour, not a sight that you see every day.

We set off early to travel to Hampton Court Palace, the masterpiece that is the only one of more than 60 palaces that Henry VIII left us with.The place is huge and if you get in as the doors open and go straight to the Great hall there is a special magic about the place, it' so quiet that you whisper to each other even when there is no body else in the place. There are some magnificent tapestries hanging in the Hall, each one made cost the same as a battleship at the time for Henry VIII. We saw Henry about the palace, this time the theme of the day was Anne Boleyn being courted, none too sucessfully, by Henry. The characters are perfect, we chatted to Lady Rochford as she went about the palace trying to catch Anne Boleyn, talk to her husband and please the King all at the same time. There is a temporary exhibition of the Wild the Beautiful and the Damned. Potraits of King Charles II mistresses, there were a great many beautiful women at court in the late 1600's. Nell Gwynne was perhaps the most famous and she appears a few times both clothed and nude, no prudery in the Stuart court of King Charles II. The gardens of Hampton Court are delight to wander around and we had pleanty of time on a fine day to take in the sights and smells of the formal gardens and the privy gardens, there is even a floral tribute to her Majesty the Queen's diamond Jubilee laid out.

Onto Windsor where at the end of the day on a Friday is one of the best times to see the castle as all the tourists have left and we had little difficulty viewing the State apartments. The Queen was in residence as te Royal standsard was flying above the round tower. (we didn't see her though. Many fine Tudor portraits are on display but the real art is in the building and rooms themselves particularly the repaired great hall destroyed in the fire in 1997. The design and supervison of the renovation works was undertaken by the Duke of Edinburgh and he did a great job of it! We finished the last night of our tour at a great family run Greek restaurant in the heart of Windsor with some suitable Cypriot wine.