Day
Three: 4/25
We got up early and ate our complimentary breakfast at the hotel once again. Only thing about the free buffet is that the food is always the same. After breakfast, we headed off to the famous Harrod’s department store. It was a pretty impressive department store. It had all of the traditional department store items as well as the unexpected. For example, there was a full food section with everything from fine chocolate to fresh fish. The only bad thing about the store was that all of the restrooms were for charge card holders, or you had to pay to use them! What a rip off! The really interesting thing was they had a water fountain for pets in the store. The top was a regular water fountain for people, but the bottom had a separate fountain for your favorite pooch.
We left the department store and it started to pour rain. Angie discovered why you should not walk close to the street when it’s raining. A car went by really fast and splashed her all over with mud. We got our bearings and headed out for our next sight. If you go to London, it is imperative that you get a copy of “London A to Z”. This book will get you to anywhere you need to go. It’s the equivalent of a Thomas Guide for the USA.
We headed off and walked to the Victoria and Albert museum. On the way we both got soaked. We did learn though that our special travel clothing was great. The material dried very quickly.
The Victoria and Albert museum had a lot of stuff in it; it was similar to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Only thing is that is was all one very large building (it has six miles of galleries). The Raphael cartoons (i.e., big tapestries) were very popular. We decided to eat lunch at Dôme bar cafe. This was a very small little pub/restaurant with maybe 8 tables plus the bar. It was good.
After lunch we headed over to Kensington Palace and took the self-guided
tour. This was actually nice, but it is
hard to hold that wand and crane your neck to hear. They should give you headphones that you can wear. Queen Victoria
was born in Kensington Palace and there was a lot of history about her. There are lots of pictures of her as a young
girl, all the way up to her death.
Angie is a big English tea nut, so we then had tea at the Orangery. This garden restaurant is located on the grounds. The afternoon tea was very filling. We ended up taking a doggie bag with us when we left.
As we left the Orangery; we stumbled across our token squirrel.
Next we took a walk through
Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens. It was a nice long walk through the green
park with lots of fountains and ponds. We stopped at the Albert memorial and
walked past the army-mounted barracks where the horses for the changing of the
guard are stabled.
After all this walking we were both tired. So rather than walk any more, we headed back to the tube station and to the hotel. Once back at the hotel, Steve took a nap. We also tested the power adaptors for the foreign electricity and they worked. Yeah!! If they didn’t work, this would be the final day we took notes of the trip, as my Palm Pilot would have run out of juice J
Rather than go out for a full dinner, we just had snacks and drinks in the hotel bar. The bartender was a very interesting guy. He was from one of the European national countries, working in England, but he was married to an American. He was a commercial pilot and one time the INS denied him entry when he was flying back from a trip. So, he and his wife have been trying to get approval for him to reenter the US for over a year. Sounded like he had a lot of red tape to get through.
After our snacks we headed back to the room to rest up for our next day.