A business built around the Royal Romance takes our writer back to the days of Kings and Queens.
I have just returned from a weekend tour courtesy of Visitbritain, during which I spent two days in London, a day in Windsor and two days in the bath.
I stayed in Dorchester, Yes, it's fabulous watched Love Story, the musical and walked for hours in cold weather, absorbing the atmosphere of austere beauty and frozen English villages.
I ate in places with names like Hinds head, where I had a vegetarian meal with pea and Mint soup and green pumpkin and spinach pasta.
Whilst my fellow journalists indulged in foods with names like Devils on horseback. And, oh yes, in the best tradition of English, I had puppet lashings of ginger beer!
It was a trip that was supposed to be built around the theme Royal Romance, in line with the April marriage of the Prince William and Kate Middleton.
People walking passing Westminster Abbey, where the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton will take place on 29 April. APTherefore, the theme of romantic palaces and castles, the musical (a choice a bit strange as love story is a tragic tale) and dinner at some of the favorite restaurants of couples, like Tom's kitchen.
Also went to Westminster Abbey, where the wedding will take place, although I don t know walking down the aisle on 3000 bodies buried beneath.
As an avid lover of history, this was the perfect trip for me; It turns out that the history of England was one of the subjects who studied extensively, and hear our guide (a monk dressed in black robes) regale us with stories of the monarchy from Plantagenets to the Tudors and the dizzying array of Kings and Queens was gratifiying.
It's not easy to live up to a birthright, inherited or won by conquest and certainly could not have been easy having to kill anyone so many relatives and friends.
Two things that I remembered particularly, going around the Abbey of Westminster had a historical perspective.
The first was the story of Oliver Cromwell, who overthrew the monarchy and became the first Lord protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Three years after Cromwell had died and was buried, his body was unearthed and put on trial by the royalists when they returned to power.
Cromwell's body then was hanged, drawn and quartered and your head stuck in a pique in front of the Abbey of Westminster for 25 years as a warning not to go against the monarchy. Barbaric, but necessary then. Now, of course, that would be unthinkable!
The second was the grave of my favorite English Queen, Queen Elizabeth i. If you know your English story, she had her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scotland, beheaded.
The irony of all this is that as Elizabeth had no heir, son of Mary s, King James VI of Scotland, went on to become King of England and Ireland.
The greatest irony is that James had his tomb of mother's extended so that it was greater than Elizabeth n.
Kensington Palace is undergoing renovation won't be ready until 2012 but there is an exhibition delicious there now called the enchanted Palace.
If you like princesses, you shouldn t miss this that takes you through an interactive exhibition with seven dancing princesses; visitors get to try to discover who are the princesses different throughout the ages.
I don t want to spoil it for those who plan to check out the exhibition, but suffice to say, I loved the story, the dresses and the music, especially the tragic poignancy of everything. Princesses, like the rest of us, don t always live happily-ever-after.
Britain really doesn't need any introduction as Malaysia is fairly anglophile and London remains a favourite place for those who have studied or traveled there.
But it's interesting to see the city from the point of view tourist s again, as sometimes I think that the United Kingdom, for many, means simply shopping in London.
What was good about my trip was that it was a little different from my usual travel, as fed my love for history. Will dwell on this, especially bathroom, my favorite place in another article soon.
I m out of Hong Kong then for the reopening of the Dior store s Peking Road and will begin to take a look at the collection spring/summer 2011.
Isn t it interesting as I begin to move from centuries of tradition and history for something truly current, as what you should have in your wardrobe this season?
Life must be like that a journey of unpredictability and contrasts.
Dzireena Mahadzir is still in the sun never sets on the British Empire mode and would love to have time for more afternoon teas.
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