This morning we planned to visit Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The rental car had a dead battery, so after a call to the rental car agency, a very nice man from an emergency car repair service came out and jumped the battery. We were on the road an hour and a half later and on our way to Blenheim Palace (http://www.blenheimpalace.com/).

Blenheim Palace is a very well maintained home and garden park owned by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough who opened it to the public 40 years ago to create an income to keep the palace in their family . Basically, the house and grounds are a huge money pit, and it is run as a business and tourist attraction to enable the current family to keep the place and live in it. The current Duke of Marlborough is 87 years old, lives in the palace with his Duchess, and is very active in maintaining the house as a tourist attraction. The first Duke of Marlborough, on the other hand, was a general for Queen Anne who won a significant war over the French in the early 1700's. As a result, he was given a cash award and with it built this palace. The palace was added to and improved upon throughout the centuries. It's probably best known today as the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

We toured two parts of the palace. One series of rooms on the second floor are an audio/visual presentation intended to teach the history of the Dukes of Marlborough and the palace. It's very well done with video and animated characters that show significant events in the lives of the people who lived in the palace from 1700 to today . The next series of rooms are the actual living quarters of the Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough. These rooms are extravagantly decorated, mostly in the French style with carving and 24 k gold gilding, tapestries and all sorts of painting and frescoed work on the walls. We saw the state dining room where the current Duke and his family actually eat their Christmas dinner every year. I think that's probably the only time they use these rooms because the rooms are very grand, very ornate, and probably not very comfortable for daily use.

We had a lovely lunch on the garden terrace and then toured the gardens. Designed by famous landscape designer, Capability Brown, the miles of landscaped gardens appear natural but are all man made, even to the lakes and rivers. The more formal gardens are closer to the palace like the Rose Gardens with thousands of roses, the Italian garden and the water garden. As you walk farther from the palace on graveled paths, the lawns sweep out before you and you can see trees and rolling hills. We saw a large pedestal in the distance called the Victory Monument, and lakes and rivers with stone footbridges across them. It's all very idyllic and beautiful. I noticed a brochure for weddings hosted at the palace and thought it would be a gorgeous setting for a formal wedding and celebration, if you had the money to afford such an elaborate setting. We enjoyed our day at Blenheim and a peek into the royal past lives of famous British aristocracy. Luckily, the car started immediately when we were ready to leave and we drove home with no problems.