Lots of London. Next up: British Isles

Before we head out on another holiday, I thought I’d better add a quick update, as I haven’t updated the blog since Easter!
This time, we’re taking a trip around the British Isles – minus England, since we’ve done that already. So that means Wales, Ireland and Scotland are in our sights.

But until then, you might be wondering what we’ve been doing for the last few months??
The answer is: exploring more of London. There really is quite a lot to see once you look behind the major tourist draw cards.

As I’m sure you’ll want to see some photos, here’s some links to the latest ones:
Photos of Kew Gardens
Photos around London in May
Photos of Hampton Court Palace
Photos around London in June

We visited Kew Gardens with my cousin Frances, her husband Cliff and daughter Esme back at the start of May. We had a great time there, even if the weather on the day wasn’t the best. As Kew Gardens is massive we only got to see around half of it, even though we spent most of the day there, but what we did see was impressive. The giant greenhouses and the tree top walk were my favourites parts.

We also took a trip out to Hampton Court Palace later in May. At first it struck us as a poor imitation of the Palace of Versailles which we visited in France, but after spending a day there we found it had a charm of it’s own.
As Henry VIII was a big fan of food, the kitchens in the palace were huge; they took up most of one wing of the palace. While there, we also got a bit lost in the hedge maze of in the gardens of the palace, but found our way out after a while!

Here’s some of the other things we did in May: took a visit to the Science Museum; explored the large Imperial War Museum; walked around Hammersmith; caught a train out to Reading for a day (not recommended, as there’s not much to do there!); wandered around Kensington Palace; and relaxed in Hampstead Heath.

In June, I don’t think we did anything worth writing heaps about, so I’m going to be lazy again and list what we got up to again: perused the ancient manuscripts at the British Library; caught up with Glendon and Shireen – friends from New Zealand on holiday in England; forced our way through crowds at the Columbia Road flower market; got confused by the weird artwork at the Tate Modern; caught up with Hugh – another friend out from New Zealand; and boated down the river to Greenwich where we got caught out in a thunder storm.

Now, I’m back to packing for our trip out tomorrow, while trying to keep cool in this heatwave. It’s 30°C outside right now!