Winterthur

John actually used my cell phone to send Rachel and I a text asking for some lunch before he arrived at Winterthur with the group.  We were able to get him some lunch before the crowds came in and I went to tour the house while they were at their talk about the estate.  Again, another DuPont home and this one is, again, awesome with a house that beats the band and a garden that is a favorite destination for weddings.  I'm the only one who did the home tour and the 10 rooms that I got to see of this 5 floor mansion were dazzling.  While Nemours was incredible by it's art and

sheer magnitude, this one was architecturally and decoratively inspiring.  The staircase that Henry Francis DuPont saved from a North Carolina plantation home, the handpainted silk wallpaper that he found languishing in a warehouse and changed the ceilings in the room to fit the length of the wallpaper, the West painting and the Stuart painting of George Washington.   All these things made the home magnificent and our leader was supposed to keep us together, but didn't treat us like errant children when we had to get pictures of stuff.  It did make you wonder what they were hiding in the rest of the house....
 The gardens and museums will have to be another post because this was a very substantial estate.  And they were the only one to tell me that my ticket via my passport to all these places was good for two days so I could come back....
www.winterthur.org