Cradle of the Great!!!

A pair of legs dressed in black trousers disembarks from the helicopter that has its blades spinning ,cutting across the plane of air that surrounds it. The legs then speed through a long stretch of pathway surrounded by breath taking greenery on either sides and reaches the entrance of a palatial house(??) or is it a palace???.

Let us now move our focus from the legs to the face ..OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH it is none other than Shah Rukh Khan and what I just wrote above is a scene from “Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham”. Am I going to write a review of the movie???..I can hear you mumbling “it was a movie that got released in 2001 and enough has been written and talked about it. It would almost be an anachronism to write about it now!!!”.

Let me give you some relief that this post is no review of a movie ..but of the famous palace that appeared in the movie “Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham”. It was none other than the Blenheim Palace located in Oxfordshire in United Kingdom. The palace is notable as the birthplace and ancestral home of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.







Last weekend was our much planned and much procrastinated trip to Blenheim palace. For those who have visited Windsor Castle before Blenheim palace, the interior of the palace would seem relatively less impressive. Just as I finished writing the previous line, it occurred to me that it is only too obvious that a Queen’s abode would be any day be classier than any other palaces in UK. Every attempt would indeed be pursued to glorify a Queen’s palace to make it matchless.


We basked in the scenic beauty of the parks and gardens surrounding the palace. It is a realization of the vision of John Vanbrugh, an architect, who wanted to see a messy valley get converted to the splendid beauty as it is seen today. The formal gardens include Water Terraces, Rose Garden, Arboretum, Cascades or the Secret Garden. I do not want to get into the task of recounting the technical details, as I am pretty sure that there would be a dearth of adjectives in my limited vocabulary to bring out the splendour of the scenic beauty in its entirety. So to compensate for that, please find a few pictures of them that I have tried to capture.

We then went to watch the “'Blenheim Palace: The Untold Story' a new permanent visitor experience that brings dramatic events from the history of Blenheim Palace to life”. At least this is what is claimed by the authorities of the palace. Although lot of innovative ideas have gone into this and there has been a sincere attempt to create an awe using some unique areas of technology, it still fails to impress or even create an impact in the minds of the visitors..perhaps as it was more like a play portrayed in a too very dramatic manner, that one fails to relate to it.

We had a very pleasurable walk around the gardens, cascade and Arboretum, the memories of which would linger in our minds for quite some significant time to come. Finally we took a miniature train to the pleasure gardens. The narrow gauge train trip was very amusing for my daughter, much more amusing than the row that the parents (of 4 kids) seated in the adjacent coach were having. It was evident that they were exasperated after a daylong picnic especially with 4 kids ..I don’t think I need to elaborate anymore here.

To conclude..Blenheim palace is definitely one of the “must-see” places in UK and you should easily allocate a day in whole to witness and completely absorb the true beauty of the place.