Our last two days in London were just as busy as the first two days lol.
Day 3:
I had previously booked a bus tour to see Stone Henge, Bath and Windsor Castle, to read more on that you can read my previous post. This was the only day that the weather really just sucked. It was cold and rainy and just gross, and when I say cold, it was really dang cold, especially for these Texans! We got a little bit of a late start, so we grabbed breakfast at Burger King, and then were promptly told we couldn’t bring food on the bus 🙁 so we gobbled down as much as we could and hopped on. The bus picked us up from our hotel at around 7am and then took us to a depot where we all got off the bus and were separated by tour group, and then reloaded onto another bus. Kind of complicated way of doing things, but we managed. Our tour guide was awesome, he was so very English, we loved it! He answered questions, told stories about landmarks and some history of London while we drove.
Riding in the bus.
Our first stop was Windsor castle, which was about 45 minutes outside of London with traffic. The weather was pretty awful by this point, but we tried to not let it dampen our day, see what I did there? I had also thankfully invested in a cover for my camera, so I was still able to get some great photos. The castle was amazing to say the least, and one of my very favorite parts of our whole trip. No pictures were allowed inside but the outside was gorgeous. So much history and beautiful architecture. The Queen was in residence while we were there which I had a minor freak out about, like seriously, how cool is that!
The flag flying meant the Queen was in residence at the castle the day we were there…eek!!!
Left: The city around the castle. Right: The courtyard
When we came out of the castle after the tour, it was like a dream, it was a sunny, beautiful day. Still very cold and windy but that was much more bearable than the rain.
Our next stop was Bath, this was probably an hour from Windsor, I can’t really be for sure as moving vehicles put me to sleep lol. Lenton said the drive was beautiful though! Bath is a city built around old Roman hot spring baths. They are said to have healing powers, and my foot was hurting (probably from the 8 miles I made Lenton walk the day before lol) and then I drank that nasty warm water and my foot didn’t hurt after that, but maybe it was just wishful thinking haha. We had a little time before the bus came after the tour so we grabbed some sandwiches from a little street cafe and sat on a bench soaking it all in and enjoying our chicken salad.
You could see the steam coming off of the water.
The final stop was of course Stone Henge. Lenton’s one request while we were planning was that he wanted to go see Stone Henge. It was crazy to be there. You see things in books and study them in school but there is no substitute for standing right there in front of something like Stone Henge.
Some pictures from the drive to Stone Henge, before I fell asleep again.
Lenton was so excited he got to see some British sheep lol. Sadly they didn’t have an accent 🙁
There wasn’t a ton to do there though, after we saw Stone Henge and took some pictures, we took cover from the wind in the gift shop which was much warmer. We grabbed some great souvenirs and then headed back to the bus for the drive back to London. My only complaint (I can’t even really say complaint because it didn’t effect us) about the tour would be that they picked you up from your hotel but didn’t drop you back off at it, and I don’t remember reading that anywhere. They basically just stopped at a few of the Tube stations and you were supposed to take the tube back to where you needed to go. Thankfully the Gloucester Road station was one they stopped at so we just made the short walk back to our hotel. So like I said, didn’t effect us but I think some of the other people were a bit disgruntled.
After we got back to our hotel, we changed and went to a nice steak dinner at The Green Door Steakhouse. I ordered a steak and it was amazing, like super good! Lenton wasn’t as thrilled with his choice, but he said it was still good, in between his mouthfuls of my steak lol. The bed felt oh so good that night as our day was definitely busy and full…just the way I like it!
Day 4:
Our last day in London, heartbreaking to leave! We started the day off by sleeping in a little and getting some of our stuff packed up then we hit up Byron’s for lunch, we shared an amazing burger and fries and some beers of course! London has lots of hard ciders, which are my favorite, and when most of the time the beer is cheaper than a soda or even water, what else can ya do?
Our first stop on the agenda was Kensington Palace, it was within walking distance from our hotel, on our walk we discovered an adorable pet merchandise shop. Of course we stopped in and found some Union Jack collars for our pups! We walked through Kensington Park on the way, which of course was gorgeous, full of kids and families enjoying their Sunday morning in the sun.
Sunday morning stroll through Kensington Park
We decided to tour Kensington Palace, we didn’t do very many tours 1) they are kind of time consuming, 2) some of them are really expensive and if you did them all it would really rack up 3) most of the places I just wanted to see, I didn’t really care that much about touring them. But Kensington Palace, home of Will, Kate and baby Prince George, I was all about touring. I was really hoping they were going to conduct the tour, but sadly that wasn’t the case, so I just waited for a sighting! Sadly, that didn’t happen either. The least Kate could have done was go into labor while we there and that didn’t occur either!!!! 🙁 When you get inside you have the option of picking your tour, you can do one or all, depending on your time limits. We decided to do the tour focusing on Queen Victoria. She was actually born right there in Kensington Palace and was appointed Queen when she was just 18. She kept journals so a lot is known about her and her time reigning England.
The Queen Victoria statue outside of the palace. I love this quote on the floor of the palace, describing how Victoria felt when she became Queen. This is a document that has her signature on it.
She married Albert, and they were married for 17 years and had 9 children, her diaries were so sweet, they were obviously so in love. You think about a time so long ago of arranged marriages and that there probably wasn’t much true love but these two were definitely the exception. After she was widowed, she went into a state a deep depression and actually wore black for the rest of her time as Queen.
One of Victoria and Albert’s children’s cradles, some of their clothes and Prince Albert’s uniform.
This was a excerpt from Victoria’s journal about when she found out she had become Queen. I loved the photos they had on display, as a photographer, it was really cool to see these super old photos past down from generation to generation!
After the Queen Victoria exhibit, we saw the “Fashion Rules” exhibit and snagged a few pictures. I loved seeing the dresses of Princess Diana.
A photo of Will, Kate and George and two of Princess Diana’s dresses on display.
The gates outside the Palace
Kensington Park
After this we took the tube to the Charing Cross Road station. We walked to what we thought was the National Gallery, however it ended up being the National Portrait Gallery, no wonder the guide I found online that told me where the top pieces of art were didn’t correspond lol. So after walking around for about an hour and seeing nothing but portraits, which makes sense now, we finally asked someone and they said we were at the Portrait Gallery, and consequently we felt really freakin’ dumb! Lol anyways we walked further down the road and saw the National Gallery.
Even though it was the wrong museum it was still beautiful and we saw some great Art including the famous portrait of Shakespeare believed to be from the early 1600s.
Trafalgar Square was right outside of the National Gallery, it was pretty crazy to say the least. Lots of street vendors and performers and a ton of people!
Check out the levitating Yoda in Trafalgar Square! In the distance is the statue of Horatio Nelson, the vice admiral who commanded the British Fleet at Trafalgar, towering over everyone.
The art is beautiful in the National Gallery but the architecture deserves a moment of recognition as well, beautiful ceilings and details are prevalent inside the gorgeous intricately carved stone walls.
The view going up the stairs into the entrance, and a few ceiling views.
It was yet another surreal moment on our trip to see such famous works of art in person, ya know, just hanging on the wall, like it was no big deal. We saw Van Gogh, Manet, Rembrandt, Monet and Seurat. It was amazing!
Van Gogh and Seurat.
Me in front of Monet’s Water Lillies.
After that we took the tube back to our hotel and decided we wanted a true pub experience on our last night in London.
This was the tube station by our hotel, and I couldn’t choose whether I like the color or black and white better so you get to see both!
We found The Hereford Arms on our Trip Advisor app and it was pretty authentic. I loved the big hereford cow on the front of the pub! The beer was fantastic and my food would have been really good if it hadn’t been for an unfortunate horseradish incident. Backstory, I hate horseradish, apparently this place put it in their mustard..that I smeared aaallllllll over my burger and once it was on, it wouldn’t come off, I finally just ended up eating it without the bun but it was a very rude awakening. Even Lenton who likes horseradish couldn’t eat it.
After a few beers we walked back to our hotel and finished packing our luggage while already missing London.
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