Vaucluse House

I was all set to give this place all the stars it deserved, but a distasteful run in with someone on their security has dropped the stars here.
You see, they offer a lovely tour of the house — with some great historical information passed down.
Another lovely Unilocaler, Andrew H, even got to play the period piano for us while we swanned on the square couches and soaked in the history of this place.
Climbing all those stairs in a corset was hard work and I was extremely happy that I had a fan. Let’s not talk about getting down all those stairs in a corset either.
Suffice to say we had a lovely lovely time here… Until we were taking some pictures before we left. The grounds shut at 4.30pm to the general public. It seemed like there was a party happening not too far away, which we didn’t even give notice to. We were enjoying taking pictures and being a bit silly.
As we gathered our things and started to head off as we noticed that the time was 4.30 the security guard came over to tell us we had to leave. We replied that we were obviously on our way off the grounds when he interjected that there’s a private party and they paid to be here so therefore we couldn’t stay.
Wait, are you serious? You can’t see that we have all our gear and are walking towards the gate that leads out?!
He assumed that we were some kind of professional photographers because he kept asking what company we worked for and wouldn’t take a «we don’t work for anyone» answer very well.
As you can imagine this was a really horrible way to end an otherwise fabulous day that we’d had starting with our high tea and then tour.
And it’s the reason why I’ve given it such a low rating. Being harrassed for no reason as we’re leaving the grounds leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth.