Germany Archives - What Stacy Did

Destinations, Europe, Germany · March 27, 2016

The Hofbräuhaus, Munich

ad The other week we found ourselves escaping into

ad The other week we found ourselves escaping into the Welsh countryside. Surrounded by nothing but mountains, fields of green and our own secret garden. I’d been dreaming of visiting @thelaundrygarden for a couple of years, watching avidly as Jenny has transformed her walled garden into something magical. When she opened @thelaundryretreat I leapt at the chance to stay here!

Our days were slow, taking time to switch off and immerse ourselves in our surroundings. Opening our eyes in the morning to views out over the countryside. Making breakfasts with eggs from the hens in the garden, listening to the sounds of the birds in the trees around us while we cooked in the outside kitchen. Long potters around the gardens, stopping often to take in the scent of the roses. Evenings spent lingering together outside with a glass of wine, not wanting to part with the views.

Staying in the roundhouse was a breath of fresh air. An escape from the every day. Even it’s location is perfect, surrounded by countryside but only a short drive from some of my favourite places in Wales. If you’re looking for somewhere to stay that feels like a real escape from daily life with all the luxurious comforts, this is your place ❤️

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend 🥰

Welcome to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage! No not the H

Welcome to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage! No not the Hollywood actress, but the wife of William Shakespeare. On Monday I met up with the lovely @elaineannowen and we had a brilliant day exploring the Shakespeare houses in Stratford-upon-Avon 😍 This cottage dates to 1463 and was originally just 3 rooms. Over the years the Hathaway family extended it to include an extra floor and now boasts 12 rooms, but the kitchen and parlour are still the original medieval rooms!

Shakespeare’s future wife Anne was born in the cottage in 1556. At age 18, in November 1582, Shakespeare married Anne, aged 26. Their first child, Susanna, was born in May 1583, about six months after the marriage ceremony so looks like Shakespeare had been a naughty boy pre-nuptials 😅

Let’s have some fun facts!

1 - There are a number of replicas of this cottage across the world including in Victoria BC Canada, Armadale Western Australia, Odessa Texas, Wessington Springs South Dakota and Staunton Virginia.

2 - In medieval England you would only bathe once a year. Starting with the head of the house and working down through the children and then the servants, they all shared one tub of water 😬🤢

3 - Back in the medieval times children were sewn into their clothes over winter - from November to May. They had an entire sewing-in day. They were sewn in for warmth and thought they would die of cold otherwise. With only enough freedom left to answer the calls of nature, the sewn-up children soon smelt very distinctive!

4 - We have Shakespeare to thank for so many sayings and phrases today! Including:
All of a sudden
A heart of gold
Vanished Into Thin Air
Puked
There’s A Method To My Madness
Wild-Goose Chase
Break The Ice
One fell swoop
Stuff that dreams of made of
Come full circle
Too much of a good thing
The Green Eyed-Monster
Swagger
Wear my heart on my sleeve
All that glitters is not gold
Good riddance
Send him packing
Love is blind
As luck would have it..
As Merry as the day is long
The be-all and end-all
For goodness’ sake
Eaten me out of house and home
Dead as a doornail
Faint hearted
Knock knock! Who’s there?

And sooooo many more. Basically, thanks Shakespeare for how we speak today ☺️

ad Heidi has recently discovered a fantastic movie

ad Heidi has recently discovered a fantastic movie called ‘The Queen’s Corgi’ which she has watched a good few times now and has become obsessed with corgi’s! Last week I booked a visit to Windsor Castle through @getyourguide and I was so happy to see Heidi’s little face light up at the thought of going to the Queen’s house and possibly seeing some corgi’s. Of course I didn’t tell her that probably wasn’t very likely 😅 but she was over the moon when she found one in the gift shop as soon as we got there so he has now found a new home with us and has been named Gatsby!

Gatsby in hand, we explored the beautiful and historic Windsor Castle, the personal favourite of the Queen. With 1000 years of history to uncover we were all fascinated as we wandered the grounds and the magnificent state rooms, with Heidi playing tour guide through the interactive family audio guide which we picked up free of charge on the way in. She loved it as it was interactive and we loved it as she was feeding us snippets of information as wandered the castle 🥰

The @getyourguide app is brilliant as it offers paperless ticketing, just download the app and your tickets are there on your phone - one less thing to have to remember if you’re travelling with little ones! They also offer free cancellations on most of their activities up to 24 hours beforehand which is perfect for any last minute change of plans that pop up ❤️

No caption, just moments and memories from North W

No caption, just moments and memories from North Wales the other week ❤️

Hope you all have a wonderful start to the week 😊 I’ll share more from this wonderful garden soon!

This is the gorgeous @gwrychcastle - a Grade I lis

This is the gorgeous @gwrychcastle - a Grade I listed country house in north Wales. It’s one of the first attempts at replicating true medieval architecture in Europe - that’s right, it’s not actually as old as it looks! The castle was built between 1812 and 1822 by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh as a memorial to his mother’s ancestors, the Lloyds of Gwrych. There was a much older property on the site before this but that had become derelict and so this stunning castle materialised, incorporating his family’s ancestral home.

To cut a long story short, after Lloyd’s death the castle passed through many hands. During World War II the castle was requisitioned as part of Operation Kindertransport. In 1948, the castle was purchased by Leslie Salts who opened it as the ‘Showplace of Wales’ for a period of twenty years. Following Salt’s sale in 1968, the castle was operated as a medieval entertainment centre with jousting and banquets. This also heralded a period of slow decline which saw the building shut to the public in 1985. In 1990 the estate was purchased by an American with a view for creating an opera centre and hotel – unfortunately nothing materialised. Instead, the castle became the victim of arson and was asset-stripped and vandalised to the point that its very future was uncertain.

The once magnificent castle became nothing but a shell 🥺 But there is brighter news on the horizon! In 2018 it was purchase by the Gwyrch Castle Preservation Trust for the benefit of the nation and is currently under Stage 1 of restoration - Shell Repair. This will ensure that the building remains standing (at an estimated £10 million) before they can continue on with the rest of the restoration project. I discovered they have a go fund me page which I’ll link to in my bio for anyone wanting to make a donation and help ensure the survival of this piece of history ❤️ This isn’t an ad btw, I just really loved this castle and I’m sure you know by now that I have a soft spot for gems like this and want to help keep this building alive. So if you can spare a couple of £‘s then please click the link in my bio and play a part in this castles survival 🙏

Happy Friday!

Did you know that Chatsworth House has been voted

Did you know that Chatsworth House has been voted one of the top 10 visitor attractions in the UK? I'll take you for a virtual tour inside the house soon ❤ but the other week I shared in stories our visit to the gardens. Here are some of our photos from our wanders and let me share some interesting facts about the place 😊

1 - The village of Edensor was originally much closer to Chatsworth House. The Fourth Duke of Devonshire felt that the village spoiled his view so he had the entire village (apart from one house) moved! It is reported that when the Duke was presented with the proposed designs for the new village houses, he could not make up his mind so had one built of each design.

2 - Did you know that the Emperor Fountain is a Grade II listed building! The fountain is completely gravity fed. The water flows naturally from the moorland above Chatsworth into the Emperor Lake. Pipework then brings it down the hill to the fountain. It is capable of reaching 90m (290 feet) but is usually turned down a bit to save water.

3 - There are more than 1,200 yew trees that make up the maze in the Chatsworth Gardens. That is a lot of hedge trimming! It is my favourite maze, I've had many a happy afternoon running around there growing up trying to get to the centre 😊 It was so fun getting to take Heidi this time and see her face light up when we got to the middle 🥰

4 - Back in 1774, on the day she turned 17, Lady Georgiana Spencer married the fifth Duke of Devonshire, then thought to be the most eligible bachelor in England. What happened next has been immortalised in the film The Duchess starring Kiera Knightley. It was some marriage! In two words, love triangle 😳 Random fact, Georgiana came from the same Spencer family line as Princess Diana.

5 - Another famous Chatsworth wife is Deborah Mitford. If you’ve never heard of them, the Mitfords were the six aristocrat sisters who took Britain's social scene by storm in the 1930s and 1940s and brought plenty of fun and drama.

6 - One last famous bride, Kathleen Kennedy, sister of US president John F Kennedy. She is buried on the estate village of Edensor ❤️

Have you visited @chatsworthofficial before?

Good morning! Happy new week 😊 This is the ra

Good morning! Happy new week 😊

This is the rather gorgeous Great Chalfield Manor. I’m not there right now, this was from my Wiltshire trip two weeks ago. This morning we’re on the North Yorkshire coast exploring more beautiful little villages and beaches and thankfully have had the sun with us for most of it ☀️🤩

Great Chalfield is one of those places that I first visited nearly five years ago but instantly fell in love with and knew I’d be returning to again. You drive down narrow country lanes and then all of a sudden you’re met with this stunner of a manor sat there at the side of the road! The house dates to the 15th century and has been used as a filming location for quite a lot of tv series and movies, including Poldark, Wolf Hall, Persuasion, Lark Rise to Candleford, The Other Boleyn Girl and Tess of the d’Urbervilles to name but a few.

When I visit houses like this I always wonder what they’ve seen over the years. One of the funniest things I think this place will have seen is when the house and gardens stood in for Killewarren, home of Caroline Penvenen and (eventually) her husband Dr Enys in Poldark. Careful toad-herding was required in series three when trained Japanese toads were brought in for a scene.

If you decide to pay this beauty a visit, make sure to book in a visit to The Courts garden which is just a five minute drive away 😊

I share this cottage in every season so I have to

I share this cottage in every season so I have to share it in summer when it’s at its most beautiful 😍

Rose Cottage, one of 11308 others here in the UK with the same name. In fact, it is the third most popular name after Orchard Cottage and Meadow Cottage.

Properties throughout the British mainland had just house names until 1765 when an act of Parliament decreed that all new properties must also have a house number and street name for better identification of properties and boundaries.

Naming your house is a very old British custom which began with the gentry naming their manors, halls and castles. The custom gradually spread to the masses and everyday folk began naming their homes as well. Traditionally the house name is based on who the house was tied to or located. For instance, the Lord of 'Evesham Manor' would have several properties tied to the estate. You might reasonably find Evesham Hall, Evesham Lodge, Evesham Cottages, and The Gate House etc within walking distance of the Manor House.

Tradesmen and merchants also started naming their properties - Mill House, Forge Cottage etc. Once the convention of house naming became the norm many other property owners followed suit by naming their house after distinguishing features within the boundaries of the house - Oak Cottage, Rose Cottage, The Pines, Orchard House, Meadow View etc. One of my favourite names is my friends cottage which they named Grumpy Cottage 😅

Happy weekend everyone 😊

It’s poppy season again 🥰 and more importantl

It’s poppy season again 🥰 and more importantly, warm and dry enough to be enjoying picnics too!

Poppies usually appear in June or July and then disappear within a week but this year things seem to be lasting longer. My rose arch which normally only lasts a week is still in full bloom three weeks later and even the poppies that line the country lanes close to home have been going for almost a month now. I have to admit that I’m loving it 😍

Last year when poppy season hit I couldn’t resist taking a table and chairs and going for a picnic in them. Do you remember this afternoon @postcardsbyhannah ? 😊🙌

Don’t worry, no poppies were harmed. It doesn’t look like it because the field was so dense, but the table and chairs are on a footpath so all poppies were left safe to be enjoyed by everybody else 😊

Happy Friday! Do you have plans for the weekend yet?

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