London [area]: day 8

Yes, that's the Thames, but it was quite a bit upstream from our London lodging. On Friday we took the tube and a couple of different busses to Hampton Court Palace, one of the must-sees on our list, and a place I had missed in 2008. We'll come back to the Thames eventually but first I need to show you around the Palace.

It's a pretty impressive place, as you can tell from this shot just inside the main court. With an impressive history to boot—it's where good ol' Henry VIII used to hang out, in addition to some later monarchs with less colorful biographies.

The first section we toured was the Tudor kitchen section and it was something to see. When you read how much food had to be prepared for all the court and hangers-on, you realize they needed a fireplace this big...

...as well as tables this long:

Our meanderings then took us into great halls...

...and more intimate spaces:

this is where Henry wed #6, the one who outlived him

As I often do in places like this, I try to remember to look up. I believe this amazing ceiling was on the underside of the entry archway:

What usually happens in such surroundings is the kids blast through the rooms faster than the adults, not giving us enough time to read all the informative signs. 

But here, thanks to a very ingenious and educational device included in your admission price, our kiddos were the ones who lagged behind! There were all kinds of "missions" for them, things to find and, as they are history buffs and not folks to leave tasks uncompleted, they had a great time. (The adults got devices, too, and they were easy to operate to find more about each of the rooms, should you want to—I wouldn't mind having something like that at any historical site I might visit!)

Not only were there lots of individual rooms to explore, but several separate outdoor spaces like this one:

Such gorgeous architecture!

And of course there was a handsome clock:

There are also gardens which you can wander in, but, as you can see, they're really big...

...and we had other priorities. We had a snack earlier in the Privy Cafe ("privy" meaning "private," not loo  ) but needed more robust fare for lunch. And we found it at the Tiltyard Cafe, on the part of the  grounds where Henry used to joust. Handily, this eatery was right on the way to one of the major attractions of the place—for some of us, anyway:

These things scare me (and not just because of The Shining) since I very often feel I'll never find my way out. But fortunately we had some expert maze-rs with us and found this welcome sign pretty quickly:

But we still weren't done. Before leaving the grounds we spent probably a couple of hours at the most amazing playground any of us had ever seen. What an attraction! 

But there's more! Remember, I said we'd be back at the Thames? This is what the Palace entrance looks like as you head down to a landing...

...where we spontaneously decided to take a boat ride part of the way home. It would eliminate our bus transfer and we'd get to see some of the Thames-side that was new to us. A no-brainer!

of course refreshments were for sale on board

So relaxing! If it had been cold and/or rainy, it wouldn't have been as much fun, but our wonderful weather was holding.

a super-happy tourist just motoring down the Thames!

Back in the big city, we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the Hammersmith tube station, then headed "home" to rest up for a very big next day—when we would embark on the next phase of our UK adventure.

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Since we're going to be leaving London behind, the subsequent entries in this "diary" will show up on my Hometown Tourist blog.

London: day 7

We ended our very full sight-seeing day at Parliament Square, shown above. But before that we were all over the place, separating, then coming back together, then separating again from our [slightly] diminished happy group of tourists.

First up—after obligatory bus and tube transport—was St. Paul's Cathedral. Since I'd already done its tour and climb in 2008 (you can read about it by following the link), Henry and I opted for Tate Modern, just across the Millenium Bridge, which should have been easy to find. Here's Hal heading for the church entrance:

And here's the view that we spent an inordinate of time searching for, looking back at St. Paul's from the entrance to the bridge. Normally, I've found signs leading one to various landmarks in London to be ubiquitous and helpful, but they let me down here.

However, we eventually found the bridge that used to be wobbly, and the Tate is a can't miss from there. We obviously didn't have as much time there as we'd planned, but it's much too enormous to see in total anyway, so we just picked a gallery and found lots of cool art. Of course the big spider in the entrance area, just where it was in 2008, is a can't miss photo-opp:

After our brief bit of art tourism, we had no trouble meeting up with the St. Paul-ers, since our next stop was Shakespeare's Globe, an attraction I'd inexplicably missed in 2008 that's right next to the museum. It's pretty cool—and next visit I'm determined to see a play there. However this time we only did the tour, and learned lots of neat Shakespearean facts from our entertaining guide:

For the next "attraction" we stayed together, taking an Uber to a restaurant we'd never have picked for lunch, but Hal was keen to try: Manze's Pie and Mash on Tower Road. The big draw? Jellied. Eels.

Nix' expression tells it all, as far as I was concerned!

Hal was determined to savor this traditional British...delicacy. I had one bite, then retreated to my beef pie and mash—which was tasty but much more filling than it needed to be.

Our next stops split us up again. The kids wanted to go to Westminster Abbey and see the graves of some authors they've read, but since I'd already done that [fairly pricey] tour, we opted for something completely different. 

The gorgeous Tower Bridge offers tours of the cool top walkways, and that's something I thought sounded much more interesting—and I wasn't disappointed.

Not only are there great views from up there...

looking upstream

looking downstream

...but of course you get to learn all kinds of interesting facts about the bridge's construction. They do have an elevator, but we opted for the stairs (they have several places to stop and rest, not to mention loos!) since that's where you find most of the informative displays.

One of the coolest things is that about halfway across the walkways, they've installed glass flooring that lets you see what's going on below. Here's Henry taking in what is the somewhat vertiginous view:

They explain how these panels were installed, not too long ago:

But, wait! There's more! On the upstream walkway, above the glass panels, are mirrors, which more than double the fun of this feature!

Henry was not the only tourist who took this kind of picture, lying down on the floor and looking up at the mirror...this was worth the price of admission!

Once you've completed your circuit of the walkways, you can also go into a museum on the south bank that has all kinds of interesting exhibits about the bridge works, how the drawbridge is operated, etc. Here's a particularly handsome bit of machinery:

After our tour it was time to meet up with the kids again, for evensong at the Abbey. Henry, Hal and the girls really enjoyed it, getting to sit right up in the choir section. Our youngest tourist, however, as well as his grandmother with a nagging cough, didn't stick it out. But that gave us time to enjoy the late afternoon sun in Parliament Square (see above picture). Not a bad substitution, indeed. Note again the beautiful weather we were blessed with.

Next up: a real castle! [first of many]

London: day 6

 

Our sixth day in London was the last with part of our group, who had to return home to work and school. And we had to move to a smaller Airbnb as a result. Although a lot of the day was taken up by these logistics, we still managed to get in some good sightseeing...and experienced our first [and as it turned out only] major English rain.

First stop was Paddington Station, just, well, because...

Although it's a pretty impressive station, as you can see at the top of the post. And it's located in a very interesting part of London that I hadn't seen before.

We had a very pleasant walk after a yummy food truck lunch at Merchants Square, enjoying these canals and attendant cool buildings...

There was also this fun surprise: a family of ducks in their own special house in a corner of the canal walkway. The kids—and adults—were charmed and watched this family have their lunch for a good while.

There was also this interesting sign which I overlooked in my previous "amusing signs" post:

"considerate" meaning no early noise? no dropping pipes on people?

Our next stop was the Science Museum, and since walking in London is a tourist attraction in itself, we headed that way on foot. Since one of our target areas was Hyde Park, which is on the way, it worked out well. And we were glad to be in the park when the rain came—heavy but not long lasting. The kids were able to find us good shelter under some of the parks lovely trees, and we barely got wet.

we opted not to visit Albert any closer than this

Of course the Kensington neighborhood south of the park is always fun to explore, and nostalgic for me, since it was my old stomping grounds in 2008.

statue of a favorite explorer

what a great idea to delineate the bike lane! tulips!

On to the Science Museum, which was considerably re-organized since my last visit in 2008 (amazing! changes in 15 years?!). It ended up not being a particular favorite of most of the group, although it's possible tired legs had something to do with that opinion. However, at least one in the party is happy whenever something with wheels is on display:

Many thanks to the very gracious hosts at our big Airbnb, for letting us leave our luggage there while we did this touristing, waiting to check into our new place. Using that as our new base of operations (closer to a tube station) we were ready for a full day of adventures on Day 7. Stay tuned!

London: day 5

A rest day—or at least a half rest day—was definitely called for, at least for myself. And so it was just in time that the kiddos were headed to the Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour Monday afternoon. Henry and I had opted out of this trip highlight when we saw the price tag (although I probably would have enjoyed it). It also required an hour-long tube/train ride, so we had plenty of time to rest and recuperate by ourselves.

But we started off the morning at the lovely Fulham Palace, just a short walk from our Airbnb. The gates to the grounds are in the picture above. There are some gardens, too, with more of the gorgeous roses we've gotten used to seeing and smelling...

It's certainly not as impressive as some of the palaces we were to see later on, but it's still worth visiting, actually free, and easy to access.

courtyard entrance

obligatory chapel

There were also fun activities built in for the kiddos: mainly, looking in all the Palace's rooms for little mice. Here's one tucked into some fine woodwork:

Give these kids a mission, and they are all over it!

girls in the garden looking forward to Harry Potter

After they departed, I had a very welcome nap (when I'm home alone I nap almost every afternoon, but so far in England I'd had none!). But Henry and I couldn't completely shut down the sight-seeing imperative, and took a stroll in our lovely Fulham neighborhood.

First stop was the local team's home ground. (Here's a blog post from 2008 when I was actually inside.)

The sign shows their next match, which was set to happen after we've left the area. There was all kinds of construction going on around the stadium, possibly involving a new hotel? condos? apartments? built into it, taking advantage of its prime Thames-front location (and apparently doing away with traditional stands on that side of the pitch):

But there's still plenty of club history on display:

read about the Johnny Haynes stands here

A walk around the grounds finds you at the Thames path, which affords an extremely pleasant way to find your way home. Before you get back to the busy Fulham Palace Road, there's one of the ubiquitous handsome London churches—this one is All Saints Fulham. We got into kind of a dead end in their cemetery, since it was too late for all the gates to be open. But there were still photo opps!

serene All Saints cemetery

We still had some time before the kids returned from their adventures, and were able to have a nice, quiet dinner on Fulham High Street, and even watch some BBC4 back at the Airbnb. A well-deserved and needed rest day, to save up for more strenuous activities tomorrow.