The next morning, we headed down in direction to the coast again until we reached Kingston Lacy, the home of the Bankes family, before it was given to the National Trust.
I loved this house! The layout, the rooms, the surrounding gardens, I liked everything. All the rooms are lavishly decorated with a big Italian influence.
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| Crystal Chandelier |
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| how to present grapes |
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| fine silver, glass and china |
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| Pieter Breughel the younger “The 4 Elements” @ Kingston Lacy |
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| finest Italian stone art |
The room used by the last inhabitant of the family, even has an early portable television and a ham radio equipment!
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| first portable TV set |
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| memories @ Kingston Lacy |
There is even an Egyptian room with many artefacts collected by one member of the family, and the obelisk in the garden was found by him in Egypt and transported to England taking 8 years to arrive.
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| the Egyptian Obelisk in the background |
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| Japanese garden @ Kingston Lacy |
Not far from Kingston Lacy, we found a very different attraction in Bovington: the Tank Museum.
We were impressed by the large historic collection and presentation of tanks. Especially the story of the famous Tiger Tanks from the German army during WWII was a fascinating part of history.
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| famous German TIGER I no. 131 – a masterpiece of engineering |
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| Tank from inside |
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| very tight space and for sure very unpleasant conditions! |
This evening we found a place at a forest, not far from a small village, so we could walk to the pub for dinner.
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| quiet car park |
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| beer or cider? |
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| nice, cosy Pub |
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| the cheese board |
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| we will be back … |
The night was extremely quiet, only a few times we heard an owl.
In the morning it was foggy and we took a short walk through the woods.
Later we reached Corfe Castle where we walked around and up to the remains of this once strong castle. It was destroyed with loads of gunpowder in 1646 under order of Oliver Cromwell.
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| Corfe Castle, destroyed in the civil war .. |
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| Corfe Castle |
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| Castle destroyed by the Parliamentarians 1646 |
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| one of the earliest castles in England to be built using stones (11th century) |
We continued to Lulworth, where we visited another but very different castle. This one was destroyed in 1929 by a fire. Today the interior is stripped of everything, only from the outside it still looks very beautiful.
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| Lulworth Castle |
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| Lulworth Castle inside, after the fire … |
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| Lulworth Castle burning, Daily Mirror 1929 |
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| still impressive structure |
Lulworth Castle is now used as a popular wedding venue.
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| Lulworth Cove |
At Lulworth Cove, a beautiful natural harbour we had lunch to gather strength for a walk along the coast until we reached Durdle Door.
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| Durdle Door |
We felt quite fortunate as the sun came out in the moment we reached this bay.
For the night we stayed at the touring park of Bagwell Farm.
