... today's field trip begins as the coach lumbers off to Hampton Court and Chiswick House, where Jefferson visited in March 1786 and where he might have noted to self, "Some dome!"
The architects in the group show me the repeated frieze motifs -- egg and dart, green man, swimming dolphin ?:
At Hampton Court, an enfilade of state rooms decreasing in size runs the length of the William & Mary era section of the palace.
And this cunning feather duster is one of four adorning the corner posts on the royal bed. 
These elephants feature in 15th century tapestries woven with gold & silk threads.
Had the weavers ever seen an elephant?
We saw the 17th century Wren addition piled on top of William & Mary's baroque chambers and Henry VIII's Tudor chimney pots, the 250 year old Capability Brown grape vine still producing in the greenhouse, green budgeries flocking in the treetops, and a stately heron perched on the fountain in the Privy Garden.
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