England Trip Day 3 -- Kensington Palace and Hyde Park

We went straight from Windsor to Kensington Palace.  I included the map so to show where everything is.  If you look in the upper left hand side of the map you can see Bayswater with a bunch of red dots showing tube stations.  That's where our hotel was.  In the lower right hand side is where you get closer to Buckingham Palace and the museums.  In case you can't tell, Hyde Park is huge.  Trivia fact: it was once kept as the hunting grounds for King Henry VIII before he turned it into a public park.

We walked through Hyde Park to get to Kensington Palace.  The paths are really wide which made it nice for bikers and walkers.  You can rent bikes there for $2/24 hours and Ben and I were going to do it to explore all of Hyde Park until I hurt my knee.  Oh well.  We got to see some of it and it was beautiful.

I apologize in advance for all the plant pictures I'm about to post.  I looooove flowers and landscaping and England is famous for its gardens so you'll have to bear with me.

Cool fact: almost no dogs walk on leashes in England -- even in the busy urban areas.  Dogs are just trained to walk by their owners.  It was bizarre!

The entrance to Kensington Palace

Also, I should mention that Ben and I completely embraced this trip by using all the proper British words, even if we were just talking to each other.  So we never looked for an elevator, we always looked for a lift, etc.  It made the trip so much more fun and I want to use so many of these words forever.

This was placed over the fireplace.  I didn't pay attention to it at first until the guide in the room mentioned it was a weather vane so that the king could check what weather conditions his naval ships were facing.

There were lots of biblical, mythological, and Roman stories painted on different ceilings.

The view out of the Queen's sitting room.

One of the many tapestries.

This and the statue of Princess Charlotte really brought me back to reality to remind me of how blessed I am.

There was a Princess Diana fashion exhibit with several beautiful gowns.  This was my favorite and the one I recognized the most.  P.S.  She was a skinny lady!

After we finished touring the palace we sat in the gardens and split this raspberry tart.  I think we bought four of these on that trip because they were our absolute favorite.  A crispy crust, layer of cake, thick layer of custard, and then of course raspberries.  This is #1 on our list of foods we need to learn to make.

It was fairly chilly there for the first few days of our trip even though it was May, and I'm so grateful we were there when everything was green and in bloom, despite the temperature.

When we first arrived at Kensington it was late afternoon and so everyone was sitting outside having tea.  It was a very English experience to see everyone drinking their tea while buttering their scones and eating Victoria sponges.

Queen Victoria

England Trip Day 3 -- Windsor Castle

On the third day we took a train out to Windsor.  Walking from the train through the local village was fun.  But once we were inside the gates I was amazed because I never really quite understood how huge Windsor was and that it is made up of several buildings within the outer wall.

The flag up meant that the queen was there.  Apparently, the Queen spends most of her weekends at Windsor and if I'm going to be honest with you, I'd much rather be at Windsor than Buckingham myself.

Ben: "What kind of a lawnmower do they have?!"

Because the moat is no longer needed it now serves as a beautifully landscaped garden.  The keep at the top of the hill is the Queen's personal apartment and one of the many areas we weren't allowed to tour.

Windsor sits on a high hill and so its view stretches for miles.  It's in the country and there are fields, forests, streams, and lots of wildlife.  I would love to be able to call Windsor my home.  It's set in the most beautiful location just far enough away from London.

This is where we entered the castle and where you get the best view from.

Queen Mary's doll house that is a replica (down to the paintings) of parts of Windsor Castle.

There are so many places that we visited on our trip where we weren't allowed to take pictures.  So once again I have turned to google to fill in the missing pieces.  There were only very few places within the castle and the chapel that allowed you to take pictures.

This is where any visitors of the royal family would enter.  Ben and I came in this way.  You walk up a beautiful stone staircase and into the armory to greet the royal family -- because nothing quite says welcome like seeing thousands of weapons of all variety adorning the massively tall walls.

This is the long room where great royal dinners would take place.  If anyone's seen The Young Victoria you'll recognize this room from the dinner scene with the king.  There was a massive fire in 1992 that burned down a good chunk of Windsor.  Fortunately it's made of stone and so the damage wasn't as great as it could have been.  But the wood on the ceiling was a new addition when they rebuilt the parts of this hall that were burned.  Those used to be made of stone.  You can also notice that the ceiling is colorful.  That's because it's covered in hundreds of different knights' coats of arms.

One of the many state apartments.  I can't remember which visiting royal that bed was specifically made for, but his name, as well as his wife's, are embroidered at the foot of the bed.  No one else ever stayed in there but them.  This is how it is with many rooms in castles and rich houses -- rooms are specifically designed to host one high ranked visitor and then the said visitor only visits once and the room is never used again.

I finally realized how royalty furnish their many homes.  They become friends with other royal families who gift them with furniture and decor.

After visiting the Tower of London, it was refreshing to visit Windsor with its large windows.  The castle was very well lit.

After we finished the tour inside we walked out here for a few minutes.  We were standing behind a gate next to a group of kids on a field trip.  We saw a black car coming out of the garage section on the left, and the teacher next to us joked that maybe it was the queen.  The car drove by and we could see her in the window!  It was the queen!  She was wearing a scarf over her hair and she was sitting in the front seat -- which I honestly assumed was something she wouldn't do as queen.  And obviously that was the highlight of our visit at Windsor.  I still can't get over it that we saw her.

Windsor doesn't have a restaurant on its grounds yet but they do have ice cream stands.  I got chocolate and mint chocolate chip.  I've learned that "chocolate" in England means dark chocolate with chocolate chips.  It never comes without the chocolate chips.  Ben had strawberry and gooseberry ice cream.  They were both so. good.

Then we toured St. George's Chapel which is also a part of Windsor.  Gor-geous.

After we toured the chapel I told Ben that  I wanted to attend a church service at Westminster just for the experience.  But because of my bad leg and our exhaustion we weren't able to.

There were several tombs there (though not nearly as many as Westminster).

As someone who was visiting England to recover emotionally from four miscarriages, this statue meant a lot to me.  I knew a little about Princess Charlotte because I've spent years learning about Queen Victoria (Princess Charlotte's death ultimately was the reason the crown went to Victoria).  So when I came across this statue of Charlotte dying after giving birth to her firstborn child (who was stillborn), I was really touched.  It shows her dead body covered by a cloth with her hand peeking out of the bottom.  Her spirit is being lifted to heaven while accompanied by angels -- one of which is carrying her angel child.

I'm not one who cries often, especially over things like artwork, but I stood by this statue for a long time and had to hold back tears.  It meant a lot to me.

On our walk back to the train station we stopped at what would become our favorite chain patisserie:  Patisserie Valerie.  Seriously check out the link to see many of the treats we tried.  These were a cherry tart and a lemon tart.  Let me just say that every pastry and treat we tried on this trip was incredible, but I'm sure you don't need much convincing.