Berkeley Castle

Today we visited Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. It is amazing - over 850 years old and still owned and lived in by the same family - the Berkeley family. It is a little weird that they live in a castle but I'm sure the private areas aren't quite as medieval as the public areas! There were paintings of all of the ancestors covering almost every inch of wall space - also a little weird but truly amazing that it has all survived since the 13th century. The kids thought it was cool - Emmy kept saying "castle - this is a castle!" She was amazed that these things existed outside of Disney movies. I think Aidan was a little impressed too - seeing where knights may have lived seemed to be cool enough for him! They also have a butterfly garden outside the walls of the castle. It was amazing - flowers everywhere and tons and tons of butterflies flying around. It was hard to take a picture since very few of them sat still for very long!

The outside of the castle:
In the courtyard:
Another angle of the courtyard:
the Drawing Room - those are tapestries on the wall - they date back 500 years!
the dining room:
Emmy headed down to the wine cellar:
The butterfly house: