Okay so something you should know about me is that I love two things in life, food and history. So when I saw that the Christmas BBC Good food show was at Hampton Court palace I knew I just had to go. I'm lucky in that I have a friend who shares the same loves, Jemma, she studies History at Uni and is just as obsessed with the Tudors as me. We got our tickets and have been eagerly awaitting the event for a good two months.
Hampton Court is absolutely amazing, I'd never been before and stepping into somewhere so iconic felt very special. Coming from a family who have always loved history and the arts I'd always been taught about British history but nothing quite prepares you for the grandeur of the building in real life.
There were some fantastic stalls at the good food show, some of my favourites were at 1920s cocktail bar, a fudge stall that sold dozens of different flavours as well as lots of pie and cake stalls. They also had live music at the event. Christmas Choirs from local schools and a Andrew sisters-esque duo. The atmosphere was wonderfully christmassy and exciting. It was bright and chilly too, my favourite type of winter weather.
During the day we also managed to go to a pomander making workshop, mine is filled with cinnamon and rose and is currently hung on my tree. We also watched a live Tudor cookery demonstration with the palace food historians (the have a youtube channel which you can find
here) they made some delicious smelling Tudor dumplings filled with figs and spices. The dumplings were fried and reminded me of Gyoza or Pierogi.
Our tickets also Included entrance to the palace, having Jemma there was great as she told me lots of little facts about paintings and rooms throughout the palace. We visited the Georgian part first and then wandered into the Tudor section through Henry VIII's apartments. Seeing the art works and the rooms was incredible. the Architecture and sheer scale of the work was mind blowing. See Holbein's portraits of the royal family was one of the best parts of the whole day.
We headed into Elizabeth I's Privy kitchen cafe for lunch, I had a baked potato with chilli and salad, it was pretty good to be honest. The cafe is pretty cool and it's also the point where we realised that there's free Wi-Fi in the palaces.
By the time we'd finished it was getting dark, after a quick peep in the Baroque gallery we went into the gift shop for a little look at what the Royal Palace had on offer. The answer is everything from pencils to jewellery, tea towels to snow globes. They had some amazing Tudor inspired Christmas tree decorations.
I'm going to stopping going on a bout it now and show some pictures from the day.
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xx
