Thursday, we encountered our first rainy London day. The rain ranged sprinkles to mist to just plain rain to blowing sideways sheets at time. For the most part, it was manageable, but the wind at times made it impossible to use an umbrella. Luckily, we came prepared to the UK, so we donned our rain jackets and hoods for most of our trips around town. On today’s agenda was a visit to Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Harrod’s Department Store, and a stroll through Paddington Station. Sadly, since it was raining we didn’t get a chance to stroll through the beautiful gardens at either palace, but we did still manage to log 16,454 steps in walking, which is roughly 6 ¾ miles, plus rode the train.
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| Hampton Court Palace |
- To get to Hampton Court, it required us to travel outside of central London about an hour via the tube to Wimbledon and then a train to Hampton Court in East Moseley. I have to say, it was actually pretty easy going, despite a minor delay on the rail line. We just scanned our Visitor Oyster card and away we went – no extra tickets to buy or anything. Hampton Court was originally built for Cardinal Wolsey, who was the archbishop of York under King Henry VIII. But when he fell out of favor with Henry VIII (as did most people), the king seized the palace for his own and continued to build and add on to it. There were quite a few areas of the palace you could visit, but our favorite was definitely the sumptuous quarters of King Henry VIII. Each different part of his area had little nods to each of his different wives. The great hall was one of the most spectacular rooms with its carved ceiling and stained glassed windows. In here, you could find a few leftover carvings of the H&A initials that were missed after he had all symbols of Anne Boleyn removed from the premises. The ceilings and tapestries were over the top, much in line with Henry VIII’s person.
Henry VIII's Great Hall
- Another area of Hampton Court palace we visited was the quarters of William and Mary. While sumptuous, they were not as over the top as Henry’s and showed the more reserved side of the monarchy. They were not without their show though. The guardsroom was intricately decorated with guns, swords, and knives in lavish display on the walls, and the paintings in this area were plentiful. But even though the halls and receiving rooms of the kings and queens were large with high ceilings, the servants’ passageways and doors were not always cut for the tallest of people, as Kevin quickly found out. I, on the other hand, passed through with ease.
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| The anemoscope |
- After Hampton Court Palace, we took the train and tube back into London and headed to Kensington Palace, which wasn’t too far from where we were staying. Kensington Palace was purchased by King William and Queen Mary in 1689 when they were looking for a suburban residence better situated for the king’s asthma. They commissioned Christopher Wren to expand the house. The palace has passed from monarch to monarch as a favorite to stay in. It’s most notably known as the current home of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Catherine, but alas, no royal sighting since they’re away at Anmer Hall in Norfolk enjoying maternity leave with their two little ones. It’s also the London residence for other royal family members as well: Prince Henry, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and the Prince and Princes Michael of Kent. So, only the eastern part of Kensington Palace is open to the public for viewing as it is a “working palace” where the royals live and hold state events. There were four exhibits to visit: the King’s state apartments, the Queen’s state apartments, the royal fashion exhibit, and Victoria Revealed featuring items from Queen Victoria’s reign in rooms where she once lived. The king’s apartments were decorated with magnificent pieces of art and intricate ceilings, while the queen’s apartments were more simple and subdued. One of the coolest things we saw in the King's state apartments was the anemoscope, which is an instrument that measures the direction of the wind. The hands of the anemoscope was connected to a pole that ran all the way to the weather vane on the roof. It was installed in 1695 for King William III, so he could tell how quickly the ships with his post would be coming from the Netherlands (and the other Hanoverians). It was the first and largest of its kind, and after Peter the Great of Russia visited King William, he went home and commissioned one to be built for him too. The fashion exhibit had dresses worn by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, and Princess Diana throughout the years and showed the changing fashion trends and how that affected the style of the monarchy. The Queen Victoria exhibit was probably the most detailed, and you quickly realized how small of a woman this mighty queen was. Coming to power at the age of 18, she lived her whole adult life as a wife, mother, and widow all while being a monarch too.
Part of the King's State Apartments
Royal Dress Exhibit
Victoria Revealed
Since it was raining and we were nearby, I convinced Kevin to hop on a bus and go over to visit Harrods. Shockingly, he had never heard of the place, and he was definitely on sensory overload when we entered. The sheer number of people was crazy, and we had to get a map just to navigate the store! Just some stats to put it into perspective, Harrods occupies a 5 acre site, has over one million square feet of selling space (mostly high end lines), 32 restaurants, and 330 departments, like “Shoe Heaven.” (Not even kidding, that’s the name). We just spent most of our time there browsing outlandish things we would never buy. The jewelry was stunning, as it should be at that price. We ventured into the chocolates and tea store, where you could buy all kinds of truffles, petit fours, fudge, and any tin or loose tea you can imagine. You could buy caviar, fresh meats, packaged preserves, or anything else you pretty much could think of as far as finer foods. Every restaurant counter was filled with people with more standing in the queues waiting to eat. We also checked out the Toy Department – never taking Emma there, but wow. The giraffe Kevin’s standing next to cost £1,300 ($2,044 USD) and the elephant even more. We ran across what I suppose was an aunt and her niece in the doll department, expertly negotiating. The aunt told her niece that mom said she could have one thing, so out of the four items the niece had chosen, she had to narrow it down to two…lol! We did end up coming home with a present for Emma though – the king and queen will be making an appearance in Houston. I would’ve liked to have gone to Selfridges too, but I think Kevin had met his people encounter quota for the day.
After visiting the expensive side of London, we trekked around the Paddington area for some cheap souvenir shops, and finally found the Paddington Bear statue in the station. We hadn’t needed to go on that side of the station yet, so it was a nice surprise to just happen upon it in the station. After a pretty full day, we retired to our hotel, ate in the restaurant, packed a little, called Emma on Face Time at grandma’s house, and called it an evening.
- Friday morning we left London and headed to Edinburgh, Scotland via high speed train. Since we left out of King's Cross Station, we, of course, had to go in search of Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame. Alas, we did not get there early enough to get our own picture taken at the spot, but I was able to snap a few photos of other HP enthusiasts living out their dreams to run away to Hogwarts. The high speed train ride is approximately 4 hours, and I spent a lot of the journey working on the blog, editing pictures, and snapping more pictures of the countryside. More of that to come tomorrow!
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