Our Day in the Kensington Area of London
Jeremy and I purchased a travel guide of London and have decided that we need to take an area of it each weekend we are in town and divide and conquer it. During this weekend we decided it would be the Kensington area.
We took the tube (London subway) to Hyde Park. We walked around this area and went into the Victoria and Albert Museum. It has one of the world's largest collections of art and design. It's huge with a 7-mile layout spread over 6 floors! Since Sophie was with us and in her stroller (not all places are handicapped accessible here) it was a bit difficult to get to all floors, so we just covered the first floor. There is no admission charge, so it is a great museum to check out for 5 minutes or 5 hours at no guilt. While beautiful and in an interesting building, it was overwhelming and we definately need to go back again.
Next we hit an African drumming exhibition at the Natural History Museum next door. Sophie even got a chance to try bang on the steel drum, which she loved. We then explored the bird and monkey displays. Again, too much to cover in one trip and no cost to view most exhibitions here. Very cool for kids!
We walked by the most famous department store in London but decided against going in. We will leave that for when we have guests who want to check it out :).
Jeremy also checked out the Brompton Oratory, while Sophie and I waited outside so as to not disturb those who were worshipping.
We enjoyed the Albert Memorial and would love to take others to see this! It is a grand memorial to Queen Victoria's late husband. I was so sad that I forgot my camera on this day, so I will have to go back to take pictures of this! This statue has a multi-coloured marble canopy, mosiacs, enamels, wrought iron and nearly 200 sculpted figures. It is magnificent and backs up to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (which we didn't make it to).
During this day we also walked by other buildings of notable interest the Royal College of Music and the Royal Albert Hall.
posted by Chris @ 9:00 PM
<< Home