ALTHORP HOUSE, England (Reuters) - Visitors flocked to Princess Diana‘s family home on Wednesday, their arms laden with flowers and their hearts still heavy with sorrow at the loss of the People‘s Princess. Althorp House, the rural estate where Diana grew up and is now buried, opened its gates to 2,500 visitors on what would have been her 37th birthday, giving the public the first chance to glimpse her island grave. In the emotional weeks after Diana died in a high-speed car crash in Paris on August 31, Althorp House in central England became a place of pilgrimage for thousands of grief-stricken mourners. They laid flowers at the iron gates and left notes and poems but were barred from entering the grounds where Diana‘s body was buried away from the glare of the cameras she had both sought and spurned. The 2,500 tickets for the opening day of Althorp House — the first and so far only official memorial to Diana — were snapped up within hours of going on sale six months ago and only a handful remain for the limited two-month season that ends on August 30, the eve of Diana‘s death. Inside the grounds, visitors saw a museum housing the romantic wedding dress Diana wore for her 1981 marriage to Prince Charles that promised so much but ended in acrimony, adultery and divorce. Diana‘s toys, her school reports and film of her charity work with AIDS patients and landmine victims are also on display. One of the most moving exhibits is a collection of home videos showing Diana as a carefree child dancing and playing in the gardens of Althorp. Another section of the museum contains film footage and music from Diana‘s emotion-charged funeral along with a copy of the oration given by Spencer in which he attacked both the media and the royal family. A walkway leads from the museum to the lake, where Diana‘s grave on the island is marked by a large urn carved in Portland stone. Access to the island itself is barred but there is a temple where flowers and notes can be laid below a plaque.