"Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been? I've been down to London to look at the Queen"

“Too often. . .I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.” – Louis L'Amour

Buckingham Palace from St James's Park

So early in our travels we have already learnt one very important less, which is that "less is more" and this lesson has already served us well as you shall see. We did not see all the sights of London, in fact we saw only a few but they were special days in special places we will remember always.

Our journey from Paris to London on the Eurostar was an easy pleasant one. We were relieved by the simplicity of the border security at Gard du Nord, as we wish to spend six months in England. However as I had done the research, dotted all the "i's" and crossed all the "t's", our tourist visa's were issued after a short and friendly discussion.

 

We had booked our Eurostar tickets on the day they were release so not only got the tickets cheaply but also were able to book our seats in the middle of the carriage, two facing forwards and two facing backwards with a table between us. The kids were able to draw and play cards while I prepared our blog about Paris and before we knew it we had left sunny France behind, after a short tunnel ride, for a wet grey day in England.

 

 

We arrived in London St Pancras in under two and half hours and we needed to get over to Waterloo to catch a train to our home, away from home, in Dorset. However there was a small matter of my Harry Potter obsession to take care of first and that of course means a pilgrimage to Platform 9 3/4 next door at Kings Cross Station. As Rob does not share this obsession  interest he waited with Julian and the bags while Emma and I performed a mad dash across the street and into King Cross. Once there we found the hundreds of nutters fans like me who were lined up to take a photo of themselves holding a trolley embedded in the wall under a "platform 9 3/4" sign. It looked like waiting in line may take hours and so we got creative, I mean really there is no sign in the movie is there?

 

 

Being quite content with our efforts we collected the boys and hopped in a famous London Black Cab and headed for Waterloo and our second train journey of the day. I must admit on a cold rainy day, and without having seeing any of the famous sights, London didn't leave the greatest impression on the kids. However, this was soon to change when we returned two days later. First we needed to meet our landlords and learn how their boiler works so we don't freeze to death while we live in their house for the next three months while they are in sunny New Zealand.

 

We jumped back on the train and returned to London for a three night stay beginning on New Years Day. As we were only staying three nights and it was during such a busy period I was unable to book an apartment but we got the next best thing. I took my chances with Hotwire and got a great deal on a hotel next door to Waterloo, the Park Plaza County Hall. Rather than needing to cram us all in one small space the hotel room had a bedroom and small lounge room separated by a bathroom and kitchenette and it was terrific.

 

We arrived early on New Years Day and dropped the bags and caught the Tube over to Piccadilly and, just as the heaven's opened, we found our seats in the grandstand right in front of Fortnum & Mason for the London New Years Day Parade.

 

 

 

It was really cold and rainy and you have to admire the dedication of the talented marching bands and cheerleaders, mostly from the USA, but I will admit I was perhaps expecting something a little more. I never realised how special the Perth Christmas Pageant is, but I suppose you can create amazing floats for a parade staged in Summer where there is very little chance of rain. However it was a terrific and unforgettable event and Emma in particular loved it, especially the dancing girls and while Julian kept asking when it would finish we stuck it out until the end.

 

 

 There were allsorts of groups marching including two different groups of Thunderbirds and quite a number of people on horseback. A highlight for Julian was watching to see if the marching bands would march straight through the deposits left on the road by the horses and donkeys. As a recent fan of Doctor Who I did enjoy seeing the TARDIS, a Dalek or two and a couple of Cybermen.

After the finish at around two thirty we visited Fortum & Mason to buy jars of sweets and lovely tea to take home but the cost for lunch was a bit rich so we visited one of the many Pret a Manger cafes dotted around London and enjoyed a lovely healthy late lunch then headed straight back to the hotel and called it a day.

 

The next day was very busy, mainly because we took too long over breakfast and ended up in a very long queue at the Natural History Museum with only an hour and a half until our booking for afternoon tea nearby. To get there we took a walk over Westminster Bridge and took the tube and for the first time we really felt like we were in London, and the weather was glorious.
 

 

Natural History Museum

The queue moved faster than we expected, taking probably about twenty minutes, but we joked when we entered the main doors that the second queue would be inside and sadly, when it came to the dinosaur gallery they are so famous for, we were right. We opted to go with our motto of see a couple of things well rather than racing through everything and so we concentrated on seeing the glorious building, the Treasures Cadogan Gallery and the Massive Blue Whale model suspended from the roof in the mammals gallery.

 

When we first entered the Grand Hall it was not the gigantic model of the Diplodocus that took my breath away, it was the stunning building that has housed this model for over a hundred years. This hall has been described as a Cathedral of Nature and this suits perfectly. The pillars and arches are decorated with terracotta carvings of little birds and cheeky monkeys and all sorts of foliage and the ceiling is panelled with delightful painting of plants from around the world. A large statue of a wise and paternal looking Charles Darwin looks over the Gallery from a vantage point on the landing of the stairs.
 

 

 

 The Treasures collection in the Cadogan Gallery housed some of most important specimens from the natural world, from Darwin's pigeons, to giant Auks and a Dodo skeleton, a moon rock, to a 300000 year old skull through to be an ancestor or both modern man and Neanderthals. Both kids found this gallery tremendously interesting and moved from display case to case with wide eyes.

 

As an Australian with a interest in history I found the plant specimens collected by Joseph Banks during his journey with Cook on the Endeavour voyage (1768-1771) and brought back to England to be very special.

 



Lastly we visited the Mammal Gallery and saw a vast assortment of stuffed animals on our way to visit the magnificent giant whale in a terrible rush. Usually I am not keen on seeing all of the dead animals in this type of museum but I really loved the Natural History Museum and hope to come back to visit the dinosaur gallery at a quieter time of the year. On the other hand when I asked Julian if he had enjoyed it his response was that he didn't like "all the dead stuff" so maybe not. Of course this answer may have had more to do with the fact he had begun to fixate on afternoon tea and an hour was absolutely perfect with a four year old.

 

Milestone Hotel - Perfect place London for Afternoon Tea with the kids or without

We had organised a one o'clock reservation for afternoon tea, knowing that afternoon tea would cover lunch as well. The fun started when we tried to find the hotel after leaving the Natural History Museum, where the guide had told us it was a five minute walk and somehow we managed to turn it into a forty minute walk. I had looked on Google Maps in the morning before leaving the hotel and marked the location on the map, and of course it was the wrong location altogether.

 

 

Lost in Kensington

 

Never mind, we finally arrived half an hour late leaving us only one and a half hours for afternoon tea. I know that might sound like a lot but we would have needed much longer to finish all that food and luckily they made us a doggie bag to take away all of our left overs.

 

The Milestone Hotel was a delightful choice for afternoon tea, just opposite Kensington Gardens and Palace. We were led into a lovely lounge room with amazing views, gorgeous antiques and a roaring fire. There was room for around six groups to comfortably sit and enjoy tea and for this sitting it was just ourselves, seated on a lovely lounge suit arranged around a coffee table and a second larger group seated near the fire.

 

 

 

We chose a traditional afternoon tea for ourselves and were brought a tea tray with a range of finger sandwiches including chicken and almond (my favourite), egg, cucumber, smoked salmon & ham, and the top two trays of the stand held many tasty morsels. We had just started wondering how we would eat it all when the lovely waitress told us they like to serve the scones with jam and clotted cream warm and so we should tell them when we were ready for these. Needless to say we didn't even try our petite fours until later that day and the next as the delicious scones, honestly the best I've ever had, following our very tasty sandwiches was all that we could manage.

 

 

 

We were offered an extensive range of teas and, after much deliberation, I selected a chrysanthemum tea. I told the waitress that I had difficulty choosing and she offered  to bring a second pot if I didn't like the first and while I did enjoy the tea when she pressed a second pot on me I was really glad to try their Jasmine Green as well. Rob kept things simple and stuck with coffee that was regularly topped up.

  

 

 

The kids were on their very best behaviour and I believe the ambiance of the place contributed to this, they appeared a little in awe of the gorgeous surroundings, at least until their afternoon tea arrived. They were given a gift when we arrived, a bag of colouring things for Julian and a lovely handmade paper note pad for Emma. A lot of thought has obviously been put into making the experience of having kids present for afternoon tea as nice for them and we as for parents and other diners. If you book in advance they kids can go into the kitchen to decorate their own cupcake too which would have been nice, but I only made the booking late the night before so didn't like to ask.

 

 

 

The Prince and Princess Afternoon Tea we ordered for the children was fantastic, it was a smaller version of our tea, though still a very generous serving, served with Hot Chocolate or fruit juice. I am someone who get annoyed with children's menu's when the food is made "child friendly" and they miss out on the delicious food that the parents are eating. We didn't have to worry about this here and the kids loved their sandwiches, scones and cakes, with the favourite being the macaroon's served on a stick.

 

 

 A real highlight of our tea was meeting the people at the next table and two of the loveliest little girls you could meet. We got into a terrific conversation with this group while the children made friends. Emma has always been a magnet for little girls and today was definitely no different and we certainly hope to catch up with these new friends again. Of course coming to a quite earlier sitting allowed the girls to play "ring a rosie" and treat us with the "Continents Song" which none of us would have dreamed of with other people present.

 

Sadly our time was up, and even if we had longer we couldn't have eaten any and so it was time to walk off our afternoon tea in Kensington Garden, which was a perfect choice. We walked across to the Diana Memorial Playground, with frequently stops to watch the squirrels. The kids made up for lost time, not having squirrels at home, chasing them to take photos and hoping they would come to them without food to offer. We didn't remind them about the cakes in our bag as we were looking forward to them later.

 

 

 

The playground was closing about half an hour after we arrived so we had to make our time count and they kids loved the giant wooden pirate ship and Julian went to climb on everything he could, while Emma had spotted more squirrels and spent her time taking many, many photos of them instead.  It is a lovely park and one could not think of a better memorial for a lady always so concerned with children's interests and who died so tragically while her own children were still so young. It definitely brought a lump to my throat to think of her whilst in her playground.

 

 

 

After closing time we caught a big red London bus down to Oxford Street to the shops to buy a car seat for Julian as we were picking up a hire car in a couple of days and it is far cheaper to buy one. So poor Rob had a huge box to carry home and when we spotted the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park  and we could not resist ending our day here, he had even further to lug it.

 

Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park is a fun fair and Christmas market similar to those we had seen in Paris and we decided that we would visit, let the kids have a few rides and visit the Magical Ice Kingdom.

 

 

The cost of the rides was pure extortion so they ended up going into a walk through funhouse together. There were moments we wondered if they were ever coming out as Julian got quite overwhelmed and didn't want to go on but once he did he had a terrific time. Emma chose to ride on a swing ride similar to one we had a Luna Park in Sydney when I was young, but instead of just swinging around it also rose up high into the sky, Emma has always been such a daredevil. Julian chose to go on one of those huge inflatable slides, he would scramble up the steps as quickly as he could, with big sweeping arm gestures that looked like "out of my way I'm coming through". Once at the top he would leap into the air rather than sitting down and sliding, and so he flew down and had a terrific time.

 

We also visited the Magical Ice Kingdom, which was a wonderland of ice carvings with fairytale themes, such as huge griffins, trolls and fairies as well as a huge ice castle you climbed and then slid down an ice slide. Did I fail to mention that it is kept at minus 12 degrees Celsius, which if it felt cold for us was worse for Rob who lost his new coat on the train. Let's just say that sliding down an ice slide without a waterproof coat leaves you rather chilly.

 

 

A day at the Tower of  London

While yesterday may appear to have been quite busy it was a lot easier than it sounded as it was mostly play. For the next day I had planned to visit the Tower of London in the morning and Westminster Abbey in the afternoon, with the kids having the option of skipping the Abbey and visiting a park with Rob while I went on alone. However, as I said in the opening "less is more" and we ended up enjoying the Tower of London so much we stayed the whole day.

 

The Tower was perfect on a rainy day as there is much to see that is inside out of the poring rain. I really like traveling during Winter as crowd numbers aren't so bad but it can feel like an eternity when your waiting in the rain to see the Crown Jewels but luckily that was our only queue for the day.

First of all we took out membership of Historical Royal Palaces, to go along with our National Trust and English Heritage memberships, so we can visit these great places more than once if we need more time somewhere plus we can skip the queues which is a huge added bonus. The kids were not keen to join a free tour of the Tower but I convinced them to tag along with tour and Beefeater Pete made it lots of fun for all ages. Mind you Julian appears to have developed a preoccupation with the idea of having your head chopped off ever since.

 

 

 

 

Emma loved the Crown Jewels, and both kids loved the displays of armour, horses and interactive displays in the White Tower. The medieval palace was a terrific way of showing the kids that once upon a time kings and queen did not live in lavish splendour, as they had seen in the Napoleonic Apartments at the Louvre, but lived much more simple and yet again far above the peasants.

 

 

 

 

As always the quality of the food is an all important part of our day and we were all very impressed with the new Armouries Restaurant, which is designed to look like a market with salads served at one stall, hot food at another and so on. The food was really good quality British food, the kids for example has sausages and mash served in a Yorkshire pudding and we had lovely stews and roasted root vegetables.



 

I also learnt a very important lesson today, never leave home without your converter plug for your gadgets, our camera's and phones had all run out of power by this time and we could not charge them before we left for the Tower. Unfortunately I was stuck taking photos on my ipad, which I really dislike doing, so these are the only photos I have.

 

 

The next day was our last in London for the time being so when I asked the kids what they wanted to do they said they wanted to "visit the Queen" so we head off to Buckingham Palace. We caught the tube as it seemed the simplest, even though we definitely prefer the buses, and walked from Victoria.

 

 

 

 

On a drizzly January day, and not a "Changing of the Guard" day, there were only a handful of people in front of the gates. We were given a reminder of why you have to be careful with managing the kids expectations and Julian had believed we really were going to see the Queen and was quite disappointed. He had to explain that her royal standard was not flying so that meant she wasn't home, or as Rob told Julian she was probably out shopping as she didn't know we were coming. So after we took a few photos and a few for other people as well and watched the guard in the sentry box march up and down a few time, to keep warm I imagine, and then crossed across to the Victoria Monument.



 

 

We all really enjoyed discovering the different sides of Queen Victoria as represented on the memorial. Julian of course was very impressed to see the Queen feeding her babies, but without having read anything about the memorial we decided that perhaps rather than depicting actual images the Queen these perhaps represented different aspects of Queenship such as being the "mother of the nation".

 

The kids also loved the ponds and fountains and the terrific lion sculpture and it took the promise of a park to get them to leave. So we next wandered off into St James Park (see the picture at the top) to visit a little playground, much smaller than the Princess Di playground in Kensington Gardens, but that didn't stop the kids having a ball. Again chasing squirrels to take photos rated highly with Emma as did looking at all the birdlife in the lake, there was even a couple of black swans which looked very small next to their huge white cousins.

 

 

With a train to catch we had time then only to walk back to the hotel through Whitehall, past Downing Street, we wanted to visit the Banqueting House but this was closed so we finished our walk down along the Thames over Westminster Bridge and back to the hotel. Then it was goodbye to London for now and we hope to be back soon, there are still many more things to see and parks to visit.

 

If you have enjoyed reading this please let me know as I'm only blogging for fun and to keep track of our journey but its nice to know if you are enjoying it too.  I'll get be back very soon with details of our daytrips to Christchurch and Corfe Castle.