Last posting: Kensington Gardens, Buckingham Palace and Mews, Windsor Castle, Tower of London, and the Churchill War Rooms.
Kensington Gardens
This
was the palace in which Queen Victoria was born and where more recently Princess Diana lived. This was walking distance from our hotel - The Rembrandt - a beautiful walk.
Statute of Queen Victoria who was England's longest ruler - 63 years. As Queen Elizabeth celebrates her diamond jubilee (60 years) this year, she is probably thinking about this queen!
We walked through Kensington Garden to get to the palace and passed the Prince Albert (Husband to Queen Victoria) memorial. He predeceased her and she honored him with this beautiful monument. There's was said to be a true love match and when he died, she continued to have his clothes laid out in his bedroom until she died.
The gardens around Kensington Palace were really beautiful.
Looks like these guys are real "MEN"!
The visitors entrance to Kensington Palace.
A two general officers, in full uniform, we found wandering the property. Nice uniforrms!
This was actually one of Prince Albert's outfits.
These are mourning clothes worn by the royal family after Prince Albert's death. Queen Victoria never went out of mourning afterward.
Diana, who lived here the last years of her life. They had a display of some of the really iconic dresses she wore. She was really quite beautiful.
Amazing wall paper, with many caricatures of Diana.
A portrait of William and Catherine.
A table and one chair for each of Queen Anne's 17 children who died. Since none of her children survived, her death instituted the beginning of the reign of William of Orange.
Lunch at the Orangery - beautiful place, poor lunch and service!
Gorgeous gardens, where Diane must have spend many peaceful days.
Patty and Jerry enjoying the sunken gardens.
I think we could have spent a lot more time in this garden, but time to walk back to the hotel.
Side view of Kensington Palace with gardens
Memorial Walkway through gardens marker.
Double decker buses still in operation here/
Kensington Gardens
Statute of Queen Victoria who was England's longest ruler - 63 years. As Queen Elizabeth celebrates her diamond jubilee (60 years) this year, she is probably thinking about this queen!
We walked through Kensington Garden to get to the palace and passed the Prince Albert (Husband to Queen Victoria) memorial. He predeceased her and she honored him with this beautiful monument. There's was said to be a true love match and when he died, she continued to have his clothes laid out in his bedroom until she died.
The gardens around Kensington Palace were really beautiful.
Looks like these guys are real "MEN"!
The visitors entrance to Kensington Palace.
A two general officers, in full uniform, we found wandering the property. Nice uniforrms!
This was actually one of Prince Albert's outfits.
These are mourning clothes worn by the royal family after Prince Albert's death. Queen Victoria never went out of mourning afterward.
Diana, who lived here the last years of her life. They had a display of some of the really iconic dresses she wore. She was really quite beautiful.
Amazing wall paper, with many caricatures of Diana.
A portrait of William and Catherine.
A table and one chair for each of Queen Anne's 17 children who died. Since none of her children survived, her death instituted the beginning of the reign of William of Orange.
Lunch at the Orangery - beautiful place, poor lunch and service!
Gorgeous gardens, where Diane must have spend many peaceful days.
Patty and Jerry enjoying the sunken gardens.
I think we could have spent a lot more time in this garden, but time to walk back to the hotel.
Side view of Kensington Palace with gardens
Memorial Walkway through gardens marker.
Double decker buses still in operation here/
We wish we had this view of Buckingham Palace, but I am afraid that we were in a crowd of thousands, pressed against the fence to watch the changing of the guard and the Victoria Memorial (circle in the center of the roundabout) was covered with scaffolding because it's being cleaned to look nice for the Queen's Jubilee celebration and the Olympics both later this Summer.
This is the front gate of Buckingham Palace (the Queen was away at Windsor that weekend)...mind the scaffolding!
One of the guards who is no doubt waiting for the change so he can grab a cup of coffee. They look very ceremonial, but they are carrying what is basically a machine gun.
Royal Mews
The Royal Mews is where the state carriages and cars are kept and even a few of the carriage horses. It is the only active Mews in the world available for the public to visit.
Here is one of the horses. The Queen names each one when the foal is born.
Can't remember if this is the Irish Coach, India Coach or Australia Coach, but they were all beautiful and some were built to have a driver and others for a postilion to actually ride one of the carriage horses.
Many of these coaches were built in the reign of Queen Victoria.
This is the coronation coach which is used to carry each presumptive monarch to Westminster Abbey to be crowned. It is incredibly large and ornate and Queen Victoria said that it was incredibly uncomfortable!
The coronation coach is displayed with a team of mock horses, very realistically done.
This is a picture of the Rolls Royce Phantom used to take Catherine Middleton to Westminster Abbey for her wedding to Prince William last year.
Here is the car itself
Windsor Castle
This is an antique engine we saw as soon as we got off the train from Slough to Windsor for our tour. It reminded me of the Hogswarts Express.
Quite a beautiful piece of restoration and the old Windsor train station has been updated with a arcade (glass covered shopping/dining area).
Our first view of the castle.
When the Queen is in residence, usually every weekend, her royal standard(red, yellow and blue) will fly instead of the Union Jack.
Just another great view. Windsor is said to be the Queen's favorite residence, with the exception of Balmoral in Scotland. William the Conquerer built the first fortified compound here. It is supposed to be the oldest occupied castle in the world.
St. George's chapel on the castle grounds is quite beautiful and contains the tombs of Henry VIII, as well as the current Queen's parents and her sister, Princess Margaret.
It is not an enormous chapel but it is quite beautiful and one of the docents told us the Queen does sometimes bring guests here to show the them the chapel in the evening, but usually worships in her private chapel inside the Castle. The area with purple curtain is where the Queen sits.
This is the vault of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third Queen, who died in childbirth. It also is the tomb of Henry VIII, Charles I and an infant child of Queen Anne, who had 17 or 18 children and outlived all of them.
The Tube ride to the Tower of London. We were so lucky that our hotel was close to the South Kensington tube station, which serves three lines, Picadilly, Central and District and could get us almost anywhere we wanted to go.
The Picadilly line.
Exiting the tube station and walking to the Tower.
The Tower of London
The outside of the Tower of London. William the Conquerer built the White Tower here on the Thames and his successors kept adding on to it. Now it covers 18 acres and includes the jewel house for the crown jewels and a large armory in the White Tower. This catapult was used for throwing huge stones over the wall and across the moat at any approaching enemies.
There is a legend that when the Ravens leave the Tower, London will fall. Unfortunately, the powers that be decided to clip the wings of some ravens and keep them in cages here. There was one wild bird on the outside who was looking at his less fortunate friends.
This is part of an old Roman wall, explanation below.
Some armor in the museum in the White Tower.
More pictures from the armory.
The chopping block and axe and yes, these were used in the good old days. Notice the indentation for your head to easily fit into! No guillotine here!
Patty and Kathy inside the Tower with Tower bridge in the background.
Followed by a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup cab!
Churchill War Room
This war room was recently restored so that visitors could see exactly what it looked like when Churchill used it to manage the war. It is several stories underground.
The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms was something to see, especially if you are interested in WWII history. And the letter below from his wife describes how lonely his cat was when he was away.
There is an old saying, "Comes the hour, comes the man." Churchill was the perfect war Prime Minister for England. So many artifacts preserved in his museum and the 27-room, heavily fortified bunker that functioned as the nerve center of the British battle against Hitler was something to see. So many people, working 12-16 hour days and then sleeping on a tiny bunk only to get up and do it all over again.
This card says he didn't see the King as often as he liked, but he made sure to drink the best Brandy possible. A bit of a non sequiter, but Churchill would probably like that.
Most comments by his staff say he was a stern task master who did not tolerate mistakes, yet his staff seem to have universally loved him.
War Room Radio
Not the most comfortable accommodations.
This is a pretty famous quote, but was actually not used during the war. It was going to be rolled out if Hitler actually invaded England (which he tried to do). When he failed, he blitzed London with bombs from September, 1940 to May 1941.
A great picture of Churchill, known for his cigars and bowler hat.
And then off to the best steak and burger place in London for our last dinner. Amazing burgers made with bone marrow and other special goodies. Never thought we would have such a good burger here!
The end of a great trip and adventure!
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