London Day Trip #1: Kensington Gardens and the Victoria and Albert Museum

When we lived her previously, Jason and I didn’t get to see nearly as much of London as we would have liked to, so this time around we’re determined to not repeat that mistake. After some discussion, Fiona and I have decided to try to make it down there for one day trip each week. Accounting for a couple weeks where we already have other side trips planned, this will hopefully leave us 4 or 5 days in London. It still doesn’t seem like nearly enough time, so we’re planning to really cram as much into our days there as possible.

For our first day in London, we headed straight for Kensington Gardens to check out the highly recommended Princess Diana Memorial Playground. The entire playground is designed with a sort of whimsical, explorative, pirate-esque theme.

Fiona enjoyed playing on, climbing, and jumping from the huge pirate ship:

Exploring a variety of different child-sized houses:

And making music on inventive music-making structures through out the playground:

It was also filled with endless tunnels through shrubs and bushes, passing through mounds of dirt, and encouraging lots of climbing. Every kid’s dream! After an hour or so of exploring the playground we were ready for lunch. On the way out we passed the Elfin Oak - a towering stump of an oak tree carved with hundreds of intricate elves in all sorts of creative scenes. Originally carved in 1911, it is amazing to see how well the oak has aged. Although sadly it must now be completely fenced in to protect it from defacing.

After a short walk through the pretty (albeit HUGE) Kensington Garden, we arrived at the most perfect little cafe perched above the Italian Garden, a garden designed by Prince Albert as a gift to Queen Victoria demonstrating his love for her. It was such an ideal spot to relax with some lunch after a busy morning.

The gardens were beautiful to explore with lots of fountains and sculptures to check out.

From here we walked on to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain which was really cool and fun for Fiona to play in on a hot day, but not at all what I’d typically describe as a fountain. In fact, it was too big for me to even get a decent picture. Here’s one of Fiona and I cooling our toes in it and below, a more representative picture I have shamelessly stolen from the internet.

Basically the “fountain” runs along a channel in a big loop with various interesting features such as small waterfalls, tunnels/bridges/etc. It was a fun stop in the garden!

Next up was the Victoria and Albert Museum. We went because there were things in the museum we wanted to see, but equally, because I had read that it was fascinating to walk around the neighborhood and see all the WWII damage that still remains. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting, but what we found was far more extensive that what I had anticipated and made it all the more real to think about what London must have been like during the Blitz.

Eventually we made it to the V&A. It was a hot day and before we could head to any exhibits, we needed to cool off in the courtyard with some ice cream:

The V&A is MASSIVE; it is one of the world’s largest museums and houses a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. As you might imagine, it’s just plain overwhelming, so we decided to focus on just two exhibits: jewelry and costume. We were wowed, and surprised, by this display of jewels which includes (from the center spiraling outward to the first white arrow) diamonds of nearly every color of the rainbow.

Also on special display was a one of Queen Victoria’s favorite crowns, designed for her by Prince Albert as another display of his love.

The costumes exhibit was full of all kinds of fun costumes worn by everyone from Led Zepplin to Elton John. I was also excited to stumble across this “costume” worn in the one West End production Jason and I saw last time we were here - War Horse:

Despite a day full of walking, Fiona bravely chose the long route back to the station so we could complete our Kensington Garden circuit and see the Albert Memorial:

Next we turned toward Kensington Palace via the beautiful “Flower walk.” We came to this amazing tree which is rooted entirely on the left of the path and were shocked that it could remain standing with all its weight growing to the right. 

As we passed under, we were so excited to recognize how it is that the tree doesn’t fall. Do you see it??

It’s grafted to a base with a very strong root system! Just like we leaned about in the Cambridge botanical gardens.

Finally we arrived at Kensington Palace. Fiona said just being there made her feel like a princess!

The gardens were appropriately beautiful:

After exploring the palace gardens a bit, we took the tube back to King’s Cross station, grabbed a delicious dinner of onigiri and gyoza for the train, and settled in for the 50 minute ride back to Cambridge.

Arriving back in Cambridge, we walked the few blocks home from the station. On our way we happened upon this amazing little set up - outdoor viewing of Wimbledon. Only in Cambridge!