Burghley House

Wednesday night I saw the Cambridge Footlights Tour Show, which is a comedy troupe based here that's been doing shows for 127 years. Cambridge is apparently pretty well-known for producing comedians and comediennes. Ya know--lots of clever folk around town... I suppose it's bound to happen. The show was different than I expected. It was short scenes acted out, whereas I think I was expecting more of a stand-up comedy situation. It was still pretty good and there were times when I did indeed lol.

Yesterday I went to a town called Stamford, which is about an hour (by train) northwest of Cambridge. The town was lovely--very picturesque. A lot of movies have been filmed there because many of the roads and houses are still made of original stonework. I didn't spend much time in the town itself because the main purpose of me being there was to go to Burghley House, "one of Europe's most outstanding and important family estates." 

I found the tourist information centre and was shown the walking route to get there. (Something I'm amazed by is that everything is within walking distance because the towns are either so small or so compact.) It took me a little over half an hour to get up to the house, but much of that time I was on the grounds of Burghley, which includes a lot of pasture for sheep and deer and a lot of what they call "ancient trees." Beautiful countryside.

It was so incredible walking up to this house. The word "huge" is an understatement. It is definitely a sight to behold.

The inside was even more amazing. I wish that I could've taken pictures of its ridiculousness. Ridiculous! Gorgeous furnishings, fantastic collections of art, massive original paintings on the walls and ceilings. Again... ridiculous, I say. I found myself several times just staring with my mouth open. I made the good decision of doing an audio tour and I learned a lot about each room and everything that's in it. Awesome... just awesome. Probably one of my favorite things I've done so far while I've been here. I would've loved it even if I didn't know that a few scenes from Pride and Prejudice were filmed there.

Today I am unfortunately on house arrest because I have a 6-page paper due by the end of the day. Ugh.