Date Day at Castle Howard

From the time we had our first kid, we have scheduled occasional date days. We take a vacation day from work, but drop the kids off at daycare as planned. It had been a while since we had done one, and it was close to Dave's birthday, so made 20 September, Date Day. And we decided to visit Castle Howard. Dave and I had both recently finished reading Bill Bryson's newest book, At Home, and it has a couple of passages on Castle Howard. The book itself is excellent, Bryson has a way of making history fun. It was so nice to visit a great house like this (it is not a castle, the builder tore down an old castle and built this to replace it...) without being at the whim of three kids. Dave could take as many pictures as he wanted, read every sign he wanted, and only be rushed by me. And it turns out that Castle Howard was used to film a famous miniseries, Brideshead Revisited - so we'll be watching that soon. The skies were gray, but the rain held off until after we left. It was a really great date day.

Below is a picture of the gardener's house. It was really nice. The gardens were amazing, so the gardener earned every inch of it!

Below is a picture of the Atlas fountain.

I just love the shot with the fountain in the foreground, castle and dark clouds in the background. So cool.



Dave and I both drooled over the library, here is one row of bookshelves.


Now its your turn. Head out on a date day with someone you love, or just yourself. Enjoy the moment! To see more fantastic photos, you can visit Dave's flikr page.