What a week of Summer - Wednesday Downton Abbey

On Wednesday of our active week we headed North. An hour and a half up 95 brought us outside of Wilmington DE, to the Dupont Estate of Winterthur. Friends of ours had sent info to me about an exhibition of the Costumes of Downton Abbey way back in spring and we vowed we would go. So the week of the Shumaker's vacation we synced our schedule with the Arnold family and set aside Wednesday for the road trip. Erica, Keith, and Melanie Arnold are as big of Downton Abbey fans as Emma, Rachael and I are, so it was a perfect fit. The passengers got to watch a few episodes of the show in our van as we made our way. I couldn't watch the show as I drove but it was fun to listen to the dialogue and the enthusiasm of the girls.

We started our visit at Winterthur with a tram ride through the natural gardens. Mr. Dupont obviously had a passion for his gardens and had many beautiful varieties of landscapes, plants and trees. After our garden tour we ate lunch in the cafe and then went to the museum for our entrance time into the Downton Abbey Exhibit. I was immediately impressed with the exhibition. Emma was anxious to see Sybil's harem pant's and moved quickly until she found them. The costumes were well displayed in vignettes with video and sound clips from the show. They intermixed pieces from the Dupont family's collection such as, photos, valet brushes, tea service, and traveling trunks. Then the curators added quotes from Emily post and Oscar Wilde. The costumes themselves were quite spectacular. The designers had taken vintages pieces of embroidery and lace and from them fabricated dress to give the effect of period pieces.  At the end of the exhibit you turn a corner to see one of the iconic scenes of the show. The red evening gown and the dinner tails stood in front of a dark background with a lighting effect of snow. Then the video clip of Matthew and Mary's engagement starts behind them. It was stunning. The girls whipped through the exhibit but were happy to go back and read things I suggested. I kept finding them standing in front of the harem pant's. They seemed to have a magnetic effect on Emma.

Our scheduled house tour was next so we joined the queue. The house had gone through many large additions over the years and had reached the size of 175 rooms mostly intended from the start to display Dupont's early American collection. They had a huge collection of George Washington's pieces. We were all interested in the house itself. It just seemed to go on and on. There are 9 floors. Rachael enjoyed taking pictures as we walked through. We had just the introductory tour so we only saw a few rooms on one floor. A person could spend all day in the house discovering things. Our tour ended and we grabbed a snack before walking through the terraced gardens by the reflecting pool. It was full of paths and levels and a coy pond. The girls took a few minutes and enjoyed naming the fish, things like Gandalf, Hiroshima, and Omelette. These girls are such fun.