England: Castle Howard
This sucked as a total tourist trap, insanely overpriced at 20 pounds for somebody’s house – a tour of my apartment with all the global memorabilia would have been a better value than this musty and dusty and crumbling old British estate. This is not really a castle but a sprawling estate of the Howard family (that still owns it and milks middle-and-late-aged mostly British tourists for a chance to walk around the manicured lawns and creaky stairs). Castle Howard was built between 1699 and the next hundred years, on a massive estate covering some 13,000 acres (5,300 ha). Inside the house – kitschy rooms of Roman statues, smorgasbords of paintings, and even a chapel. Outside – an equal insanity of a wild boar statue, Atlas fountain, and some pseudo-Greek and Roman figures, as well as a pyramid. The rose flower garden looks somewhat dilapidated. One of the lawns had a couple large champignon mushrooms which was the only plus at the Castle Howard…
