Our day at Stowe Gardens

This weekend my parents invited us to join them on a trip to Stowe, Bucks. Despite living just 25 minutes away I had never been before and was expecting a nice little walk with the kids. I was pleasantly surprised how much there was to explore!

We arrived at 10am when the grounds opened and paid our £2 parking. There is a voucher on the ticket for a free hot drink in the restaurant so essentially parking is free. Bundling the kids up we headed into the grounds via the New Inn 18th century buildings complete with props 'like from the old days'.

My parents have National Trust annual passes so used some vouchers for us to enter for free. There were lots of activity packs and nature identification sheets to take around the park with you...although Ted wasn't interested and just wanted to run his energy off.

The grounds were so beautiful with lots of incredible buildings and temples to discover. Ted enjoyed having his photo taken with all of the busts and statues as we tried to explain not all of them were kings or knights! It was quite a crisp day but reasonably mild so ideal weather for a nice stroll.

We popped into the cafe at Stowe House but decided that a tour wouldn't be suitable for Ted yet as he would just want to run around but we had a nice chat with one of the volunteers and learned a bit about the house. It is actually a private school now which costs an arm and a leg to get your child in to...perhaps out of our price range!

Our favourite place of the day was the Grotto which is essentially a man made cave. It was a little eerie but quite magical down there. We spent a good few hours exploring before retreating back to the restaurant for (a slightly overpriced) lunch before heading home.

I can't wait to go back in different seasons and see how the gardens change. Snowdrops are due soon and I have never seen a wild snowdrop forest so that is a must. Here are some more of the pictures from our lovely day out.