Friday, June 19, 2009

Saturdays are for Palace Hopping

I awoke last Saturday morning at around a quarter to six in the morning, which isn't unusual, given that it is summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sun has well and truly 'risen' by 5am (and it isn't fully 'down' until almost 10pm)- what was unusual though, was that I was feeling great, and ready to face the day ahead.

By the time Friday comes around, I am usually exhausted, looking forward to an alcoholic beverage or two, tea that I don't have to cook myself, in a pub or restaurant not too far away from my house, so I can promptly head home and crash- even if it's 8:30pm when I do so. That doesn't always happen, but it did last Friday.

Caitlin had managed to find a really cool tiki-like Cocktail Bar up in the Clapham Junction called Sugar Cane, which has £4 cocktails before 7pm, and we arrived there about twenty to seven- just in time for a splendid Mojito and a sharp Cosmopolitan, which really hit the spot. Rather close to Sugar Cane, was this little restaurant called Big Fat Panda which I had seen being advertised in the junction a few times, and so we decided to head in for some Asian cuisine. The food was awesome, and the G&Ts were only two quid a pop, and a bit after 8pm, I was totally spent and satisfied, and trekked on home...to bed... And as a result, was up early and feeling great for a Saturday.

We'd known for several weeks that we'd be heading to a Superheroes theme party in London's North later that evening, and I knew that it would be quite a large affair, and that the following Sunday would be spent sleeping, doing washing and watching rubbish television. So, I decided that Saturday morning was the ideal time to be a tourist-unashamedly, again- and took off to Kensington Palace, via the South Kensington district and Hyde Park.

It takes almost no time to get from Battersea to South Kensington by bus- it's almost the same route as the one that the 319 takes to Sloan Square, except that you go round the back of Chelsea 'til you reach South Kensington Station. It's all a bit of a mess, with road works and the like going on in the South Kensington precinct, but not so distracting that you miss the amazing cafes, with incredible looking glazed-fruit-topped tarts and other exquisite looking baked goods displayed in the front windows, and the smell of strong, rich coffee wofting out into the side streets.

I managed to make it past these cafes (just), and down to Hyde Park, and went and found the Albert Memorial. Last time I passed it, I didn't really have time to absorb the awesome structure that it is, and so this time around I spent a bit of time walking around it, taking many photos. It's an absolutely incredible piece of work- such an elaborate tribute- and the golden statue of the former monarch shone brightly in the morning sun.

Only a hop, skip and a jump from the Albert Memorial, lies Kensington Palace. It is surrounded by amazing lawns, the beautiful Sunken Gardens and the Orangery Restaurant. It's a rather humble palace- when compared to Buckingham Palace, that is- but it's great that you can actually go in and look around the place. On the ground floor, there were features on Diana (mostly a collection of dresses she wore- but, in all honesty, I thought it was somewhat pathetic, and so much more could have been done...sadly, I think it just further reflects the way the Royal Family feel about Diana) who resided at Kensington Palace for a while, and an exhibition on The Last Debutantes 1958 which was brilliant! I loved all the different dresses, and the accessory features (bags, glasses, cigarette cases, little compacts and long gloves), the interviews with 'the last debutantes', as well as a feature on Britain in 1958- very entertaining!

On the upper levels of the Palace, were a number of stunning and well preserved rooms, such as the King's Gallery and the Cupola Room, which have a particularly regal ambience, especially with the views from the windows that extend out into Hyde Park, over the round pond, the Sunken Gardens and beyond. My two favourite rooms though, were definatley Queen Victoria's bedroom (the exact place where she was awoken in the early hours of the morning to be told that she was the new Queen of England), and the adjoining room, which featured one of her doll houses, and many of the dolls she had as a child.

Despite the archaic 'head set' (seriously, sometimes this country is so backwards- the headset was like a little dictaphone that you had to hold up to your ear for the audio tour- no headphones! It would seem this is the same gadget that they've been using since 1958!), my first internal palace experience was a great one.

Hmmm- which one will be next?

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