Hammersmith

Weather - Mixture of cloud and sun, chilly - Min 3, Max 16

We had a wonderful day broken into three parts. Firstly we visited Kensington Palace in the morning, had a long lunch at the Kensington Palace Orangery and the afternoon was spent at Royal Albert Hall.

We caught the double decker bus from Hammersmith to Kensington and we sat on the top deck to get the best views of Kensington’s High Street with its speciality shops. We had a cool, sunny morning as we made the short walk to the palace from the bus stop. We passed a statue of Queen Victoria in front of the palace and this was sculptured by Princess Louise the fourth daughter of the Queen.

We arrived at 10.30am and there was an easy entry with few people lining up. We headed straight to the palace cafe for coffee and a Victoria Sponge. The sponge cake was an appropriate choice as Kensington Palace is the place where Queen Victoria grew up until becoming Queen at the age of 18. It was also the home of Diana, Princess of Wales from 1981 to her death in 1997.

There were audio guides as part of the entry price of £20 and they were excellent and the best we have used so far on our recent tours. We first toured the State Apartments by walking up the elaborate King’s Staircase to the upper level. 

The Cupola Room decorated in 1722 for King George I had an impressive painted ceiling which looked like it had been carved. 

Another wing of the palace was where Queen Victoria spent her early years. Her toys and doll’s house were on display.

There was a well-preserved dress that Queen Victoria wore as a young queen from 1842. It showed how teeny-tiny she was at 150cm.

Queen Victoria’s spectacular jewellery including necklaces and tiaras were also on display. As I was viewing a tiara Henk took this reflection photo of me wearing one of the tiaras.

After completing the tour of the palace we walked to the nearby Orangery for lunch. The sun was out and the building looked elegant with large white umbrellas lined up on the patio. 

We couldn’t get an inside table and the only available outside tables didn’t have an umbrella. We took the outside table but the glare from the patio and the table made our eyes water. Thankfully, a couple under an umbrella left their table and we were able to sit in the shade. We had a delicious lunch of tender British lamb.

A short walk from Kensington Palace through a section of Hyde Park is Royal Albert Hall where we spent the afternoon on a tour. Access to the theatre is only by booking a tour which takes 1.5 hours. To our surprise we came across a huge monument, The Albert Memorial which is directly across the road from the hall. It stands at 54m and looks over the hall. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria and stands where the Crystal Palace once stood. 

The tour took us behind the scenes to the various seating boxes where important dignitaries sit and the room where the royal family congregate before going to their seats. It was a plain room and was used by the King and Queen last night before a concert for the King’s Foundation. The furniture has been provided by Buckingham Palace. 

Unfortunately we couldn’t take any photos of the large red concert hall as there was an orchestra performing and recording, however we were able to watch them play which was a bonus. In place of not being able to take a photo of the hall Henk and I had a photo taken of us in front of a green screen which added the hall behind us. It was fun following the photographer’s various instructions for the poses. He took about four different photos and we chose this one. So here we are performing at Royal Albert Hall. 

At the end of the tour we returned from Kensington to Hammersmith on another double decker bus. We got the front seat on the top deck.

The free app which we are using, Citymapper is excellent for working out which trains and buses to catch across London as well as how long it will take and is saving us a lot of time. 

We arrived back at the flat at 5.00pm. After a big lunch we opted for toasted sandwiches again. Henk did a load of washing while I wrote the blog. We went to bed early as it was a big day and we have another big day tomorrow with the State Opening of Parliament procession. We also have booked a play for tomorrow night.