Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House grounds

Today Lindsay and I traveled by bus from Sheffield (where we are staying) to Chatsworth House, which is a leisurely hour-long ride through the gorgeous English countryside and an adorable town called Bakewell. Bakewell looks like what you would picture in your head as an "English town" for a movie. True to its name, Bakewell had an old-timey shop selling artisan bread loaves that made me want to stop and taste. Carbs are my weakness! But I stuck to the plan and we continued on to Chatsworth House.

The staircase featured in the P&P movie

Chatsworth is a huge house with even bigger gardens. I believe the term "house" is a little bit of an understatement for a building like this. This house is rumored to be the inspiration for Jane Austen's Pemberley, and it was used as Pemberley in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film starring Keira Knightley.

Mural above the grand staircase

Wood-paneled wall carvings

We started exploring the inside of the house, where each room seemed to be more beautiful than the one before it. Almost every ceiling was an exquisite mural with a Roman theme, usually gods or angels surrounded by more gods and cherubs. The rooms were all impressive, starting with the grand staircase in the main room and continuing through to the elaborately carved wood-paneled room with busts made into the walls. This room also contained a letter composed by Elizabeth I, which was an unexpected surprise. The hallways are lined with statues, paintings, and artifacts of all types including large rocks, urns, and Egyptian carvings.

Veiled Vestal Virgin

In one of the long galleries, there are several marble statues that are so life-like you almost believe that they will move if you stare at them long enough. The most impressive statue was a woman wearing a veil over her face that manages to look sheer because you can see her features "through" it. The craftsmanship was so amazing that I didn't believe at first that this wasn't just a statue with a cloth draped over it. The statue is formally called the Veiled Vestal Virgin and was carved by Raphaelle Monti in the mid 1800s. This statue, the ceilings, the house's front staircase, and the gallery were all briefly featured in the P&P movie.

The formal dining room

Part of the library

The library that the statue is housed in would make any reader insanely jealous. It was converted from a long gallery originally used to showcase paintings, then spills into the next room and the next smaller room connecting it to the formal dining room. And all of the splendor inside is magnified by the view on the outside. The house overlooks rolling hills and fields with a river running through for the many sheep roaming around to drink from. There are several ponds and fountains on the property with the most impressive ones being located near the house. There is one behind the house called the Cascade, which is located on a hillside and made up of a series of waterfalls to follow the hill's descent. The other impressive one is a huge, geyser-style fountain on the side of the house with a large reflecting pool. This is so lovely that I would have had the roads redone so that this side of the house would become the front. It's what I would want people to see when they drove up.

The Cascade

ATL Layover, Part 1

After a short flight to ATL, I find myself looking for ways to amuse myself for 5 hours. So far, I've eaten a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut (at 10:30 am!) and looked at giant sculptures from Zimbabwe between terminals T & A (haha, T&A). What do you call sculptures (or anything) from Zimbabwe? Zimbabwean? Must Wikipedia later.

Now I'm sitting in the On the Border conveniently located right across from my gate drinking a margarita. This woman who I believe was drunk (at 11am? Props to her!) said the bartender made really good ones. It's pretty good, but doesn't compare to ones from Cozumel! It's in a huge glass though, which makes me happy. The fact that I'm drinking a margarita out of a tumbler makes me feel a little trashy though. And the John Mayer/Gavin deGraw crossbreed wannabe they're piping throughout the restaurant has a decidedly un-Mexican feel. I paid almost $7 for a small pizza, drink, and breadsticks (which were awful and the only time I've ever not enjoyed Pizza Hut breadsticks), so I'm afraid to think how much this margarita will cost. It will be worth it though, if not for the tequila for the place to sit and write without being hunched over in those crappy benches at the gate.

I'm sitting next to a guy that just got back from Afghanistan and he's wearing this little pouch thing on his arm with his ID in it (among other things, I guess). The bartender said it would be handy for when she was out on the beach in the Bahamas, and I had to hold back the urge to tell her that she'd have awful tan lines (and weird looking too) if she used it for that purpose.I'm kind of in love with my new Sharpie pen now, by the way.

Now they're playing Madonna. How Mexican. I've only killed 20 minutes here and I'm running out of ideas. I may have to watch movies/TV shows on my iPod and pray there's an interesting movie on the plane. E! wasn't working in my last flight, and that's the only channel worth a damn in the morning.

OMG, they're actually playing a song in Spanish! About time. Anyways, the margarita's almost gone and my hand's starting to hurt, so I'm stopping now. You can measure my boredom by how many more times I write today.