Here and there but not quite everywhere!
Last weekend, we visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Northern Virginia. Today, we returned! We saw some flowers that were either new or we just didn’t notice last time. And we finally saw some bright orange male Baltimore Orioles! And plenty of other birds!
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We headed over to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens today and arrived just after they opened at 10am. We were there to see what new flowers have bloomed since our last visit and to hopefully see some Baltimore Orioles, as well as any other interesting birds we may encounter.
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We drove from around Oxford to Dover in the morning. It was a relatively long drive, taking nearly 3 hours. We had some varying plans for today but decided to first visit Dover Castle, atop the White Cliffs of Dover. After exploring the castle and its tunnels, we drove to the National Trust‘s White Cliffs of Dover park. It was getting relatively late so we just did a short walk to get a good look at the cliffs.
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Just two destinations today! We started out in Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing lead a team that was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma and other Axis codes. There was quite a bit to see! Afterwards, we headed over to nearby Stowe to enjoy their vast gardens.
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We started the day by heading to Minster Lovell Hall and Dovecote in the small village of Minster Lovell to view the ruins of a 15th century manor house. A very pretty rural place that was a bit hard to find, we had to ask a local jogger for directions!
After spending some time there, we drove over to Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The family tree of well known English figures is probably not well known to most Americans, including ourselves. It turns out that the this branch of the Churchill family is actually Spencer Churchill. The Spencer branch being the same family as Diana, Princess of Wales, formerly Diana Spencer. They would have been fairly distant relations. As for the palace, it is quite impressive!
We ended our day by taking a walk around Oxford. There were graduation ceremonies taking place at some of the colleges that make up the University of Oxford. It was quite busy. After the last few days of being in relatively remote places, it felt like we were in a big city!
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