What I did On My Holidays - Part 2.
18 Aug 2013 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatThis is the first post about what I got up to once I moved from Coventry down to London. D-d flew in to London City Airport and met me at out hotel in time for dinner on Sunday evening. We were staying at The Radisson Blu Vanderbilt about 3 minutes walk from the Natural History Museum, 5 minutes from th V&A, and about 15 minutes from Kensington Palace. We got a really nice bed and breakfast deal which included an Oyster Card with £10 on it (extremely useful for travelling on the tube), afternoon tea, and free entry to Kensington Palace - which had been on our to-do list anyway.
So on Monday we went down to breakfast (and as I mentioned in the short post made at the time, got scolded by the waitress for not eating enough!), and then walked to Kensington Gardens, and thence to the Palace.
Under the cut are pictures of the gardens, and a few taken inside, but none of the costume ones- I will post those separately tomorrow as it would, otherwise, have been a very long post.
So - we walked towards the palace, and I got the weird sensation that it was... too flat...
I did wonder if it was my glasses or something, until we got a little closer...
And I realised that it really was a 2 dimensional image! There is building work at this end of the palace, and a large drawing of the palace covers all the scaffolding so that the view across the park is unaltered!
Those are pretty impressive gates, aren't they? But we walked around the corner towards the public entrance - which is not swathed in scaffolding and art-work.
Here is a rather nice statue of Queen Victoria -
Everyone seemed to be taking pictures of her head-on - but I rather like the profile shot.
It was about 9.50am by then - but the palace doesn't open until 10.00 - so we went for a stroll in the gardens -
And I found a rather smaller gate I rather like -
Here is the Tudor rose from the centre -
The doors having opened, and the twenty or so people who were waiting on the steps having gone in, we made our way towards the palace. This view caught my eye -
The cranes looked to me rather like stick insects or praying mantis(es?) or something.
Once inside we found that the public areas are well laid out, with four clearly defined 'routes' each covering a different period of the history, and each leading you back to a central area where you could get your bearings and then choose which route to follow next.
I mainly took pictures of some of the clothing on display - including dresses belonging to the Queen, Princess Margaret, and Diane Princess of Wales (usually referred to in our family as Dead Di).
But, as I said, I will post those tomorrow. In the meantime - here is a house of cards, built in the fireplace in the room where George 2nd often played cards -
D-d looked at it for a minute and then pointed out to me that I needed to look closely at the ground floor -
Yes - the house of cards has a rather beautiful loo!
And in the next room, really just a way between two other rooms, there was a display cabinet in which we spotted this -
A hand-knitted crown! There was a knitted sceptre too, but it was even harder to photograph. As was the notice that pointed out that they were replicas and not part of the actual crown jewels :)
In another room we saw an excellent display about the Great Exhibition - including a small book called 'The ABC of the Great Exhibition', that began 'A is for Artificial Limbs' and included a line or two about many of the weird and wonderful exhibits - I really like this one -
Sadly they didn't sell it in the palace bookshop - I would certainly have bought a copy!
And so - tomorrow - dresses, lots of dresses.
So on Monday we went down to breakfast (and as I mentioned in the short post made at the time, got scolded by the waitress for not eating enough!), and then walked to Kensington Gardens, and thence to the Palace.
Under the cut are pictures of the gardens, and a few taken inside, but none of the costume ones- I will post those separately tomorrow as it would, otherwise, have been a very long post.
So - we walked towards the palace, and I got the weird sensation that it was... too flat...
I did wonder if it was my glasses or something, until we got a little closer...
And I realised that it really was a 2 dimensional image! There is building work at this end of the palace, and a large drawing of the palace covers all the scaffolding so that the view across the park is unaltered!
Those are pretty impressive gates, aren't they? But we walked around the corner towards the public entrance - which is not swathed in scaffolding and art-work.
Here is a rather nice statue of Queen Victoria -
Everyone seemed to be taking pictures of her head-on - but I rather like the profile shot.
It was about 9.50am by then - but the palace doesn't open until 10.00 - so we went for a stroll in the gardens -
And I found a rather smaller gate I rather like -
Here is the Tudor rose from the centre -
The doors having opened, and the twenty or so people who were waiting on the steps having gone in, we made our way towards the palace. This view caught my eye -
The cranes looked to me rather like stick insects or praying mantis(es?) or something.
Once inside we found that the public areas are well laid out, with four clearly defined 'routes' each covering a different period of the history, and each leading you back to a central area where you could get your bearings and then choose which route to follow next.
I mainly took pictures of some of the clothing on display - including dresses belonging to the Queen, Princess Margaret, and Diane Princess of Wales (usually referred to in our family as Dead Di).
But, as I said, I will post those tomorrow. In the meantime - here is a house of cards, built in the fireplace in the room where George 2nd often played cards -
D-d looked at it for a minute and then pointed out to me that I needed to look closely at the ground floor -
Yes - the house of cards has a rather beautiful loo!
And in the next room, really just a way between two other rooms, there was a display cabinet in which we spotted this -
A hand-knitted crown! There was a knitted sceptre too, but it was even harder to photograph. As was the notice that pointed out that they were replicas and not part of the actual crown jewels :)
In another room we saw an excellent display about the Great Exhibition - including a small book called 'The ABC of the Great Exhibition', that began 'A is for Artificial Limbs' and included a line or two about many of the weird and wonderful exhibits - I really like this one -
Sadly they didn't sell it in the palace bookshop - I would certainly have bought a copy!
And so - tomorrow - dresses, lots of dresses.
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no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 05:13 pm (UTC)Looking forward to the dresses, you and D-d seem to have had a fabulous time.
Huggs,
Lynda
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 06:12 pm (UTC)Actually, as far as I can reckon it, they don't get such a nice view as the public parts have!
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:31 pm (UTC)The colours were absolutely gorgeous that day.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 06:45 pm (UTC)The gardens are beautiful. Not very hobbity, but formal gardens have a sort of geometric beauty all their own.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:39 pm (UTC)There was a really sad room with seventeen little chairs painted black, amongst swags of flowers, to illustrate the deaths of all 17 of Queen Anne's children. One was a little bigger, and there were press cuttings telling us all about Prince William's 11th birthday party, where he danced and danced and had a great time - then died 3 days later. He was the only one who had survived infancy...
Such formal gardens, I feel, belong in Gondor!
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 07:51 pm (UTC)I'm glad.
I loved that garden - and once I realised it wasn't my eyes, I was rather taken with the flat palace frontage. That tiny little ablutions in the house of cards really made me smile.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 09:18 pm (UTC)I think the thing I loved most about the card-castle was that none of the other rooms seemed to be furnished.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 09:07 pm (UTC)I love the house of cards and the knitted crown. I think they must have revamped Kensington Palace since we were last there!
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 09:24 pm (UTC)I get the feeling that quite a lot of the displays are new - there were some very traditional things - like Queen Victoria's wedding dress, and then some very different ones, like the 17 small black chairs to represent Queen Anne's lost children. Both of us really liked it.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 09:39 pm (UTC)I've never bee to Kensington Palace. That's another place I must visit next time I'm in London.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 10:11 pm (UTC)Kensington Palace is well worth a visit.
no subject
Date: 18/08/2013 10:53 pm (UTC)The 2 dimensional image is inspired.
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 07:31 am (UTC)I had never been to Kensington Palace before - but I get the impression that a lot of the displays are pretty new- so I think you'd find it has changed a bit!
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 12:28 am (UTC)I like that hand-knitted crown. Sort of the thing for the monarch who has everything.
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 07:37 am (UTC)The crown was just in a display in a glass fronted cupboard in a bit of corridor - but it caught our eye and we both thought it was wonderful.
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 05:04 am (UTC)In spite of working in South Ken for a few years, I never went to look at Kensington Palace.
I really like the cranes growing out to the vegetative arch. And the knitted crown.
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 07:42 am (UTC)I get the impression that the displays in Kensington Palace have been updated a lot in the past couple of years - so I don't know how good it might have been when you lived there, anyway!
D-d and I loved the knitted crown, which was just in a glass fronted cupboard in the bit between two of the main rooms.
no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19/08/2013 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 21/08/2013 06:44 pm (UTC)we found that the public areas are well laid out, with four clearly defined 'routes' each covering a different period of the history, and each leading you back to a central area where you could get your bearings and then choose which route to follow next.
You know, things like these are so immensely awesome... I encountered something like this the first time in Britain in the late 80s, and while similar helps are slowly developing outside the UK, this kind of "thoughtful tourist guidance" is something I strongly relate to Britain.
Yay to the cardhouse loo and the hand-knitted crown! ♥ The cloak-boat sounds like something any sensible elf travelling along the Anduin probably would have worn...
no subject
Date: 21/08/2013 08:52 pm (UTC)And yes - a lot of the historic buildings and museums are very well laid out to help you understand the relationships between different periods, different people and so on.
And yes! Of course! The cloak-boat sounds like something any sensible elf travelling along the Anduin probably would have worn... I hadn't thought of that.