Leeds Castle, Maidstone, Kent

We were supposed to tour Dover Castle on this day, but after a wonderful night's stay in the Old Churchill hotel on the beach and a traditional English breakfast, we arrived at the gates of Dover Castle to find out it was closed. Apparently, they are closed every Tuesday and Wednesday during the winter. That would have been nice to know before we drove all the way down here.

So, after being pretty ticked off for a few minutes, Kevin suggested that we go to Leeds Castle. I'm SO glad that we did. This was such a wonderful place for our whole family. If I had to choose another name for the castle, I'd call it Bird castle because it was surrounded with peacocks, ducks, geese, white and black swans, and there was an aviary behind the castle with all sorts of exotic birds in cages. Kevin would probably call it Maze castle because of the fun hedge maze behind the castle that we ran around in for an hour. He also loved the huge playground for the kids that looked like a castle.

Leeds castle was absolutely breath-taking in its English understated simplicity. It is basically two stone structures (the older one in the middle of the man-made moat being built in the 1300's and the "newer" one on the small island in the middle of the moat being built in the 1800's) in the middle of a man-made lake, surrounded by rolling hills with grazing sheep and huge oak trees. I felt like I had stepped into a movie. It was gorgeous.

The house itself was decorated for Christmas. Every room was a scene from the Nutcracker. There were 17 Christmas trees throughout the house. It was truly beautiful.

Our favorite part, though, was the maze. We ran around and around looking for the right way to get to the center. Weslee giggled and smiled as he bobbed along on Kevin's back. It was such a fun thing to do as a family. We really had a good time.