London by Foot

Wow, we really are in London!  The big question today is what shall we do???  After a lazy start to the day we headed out on foot to discover as much as we could about this intriguing

Hyde Park on the way home.

city.  We started by heading into Hyde Park which was a short walk from Jen’s place.  It was slightly overcast but overall a nice day to be out and about.  The park is beautiful and rather big.  I suspect we only saw a portion of what is there.  There were beautiful tree lined paths, people walking and biking, a carousal, Princess Diana’s Playground, a number of statues and a great big pond with numerous ducks, swans and other birds.  It was great to get away from all those cars!

Royal Albert Hall.

Not sure... just a cool back drop.

Our first stop was the Natural History Museum.  It was housed in a combination of old and new architecture with specimens they collected many years ago such as dinosaurs, fossils & mammals.  One really interesting exhibit we went to was on earthquakes and volcanoes.  There was one area where you stood in a replica of a Japanese grocery store when an earthquake strikes.  The ground really moves around and items on the shelf etc are tussling around.  It is a rather scary feeling which I hope we will never have to experience in real life.  As much as I enjoyed the exhibits I found myself drawn to the details in the original building.  There were monkeys carved into the pillars that ran up and around the room of the main hall and carved birds nestled in corners.  I had to ask if the building was originally built for some other purpose as it was so grand but it turns out that it was built to house the museum.

Natural History Museum.

Not far from the Natural History Museum was our next stop, The Victoria and Albert Museum.  This was perhaps one of my favourite stops.  Here I found an exhibit on clothing worn throughout the last 300 hundred years.  It was hard to believe how well they were preserved and how intricate the detail.   I also discovered how petite the women must have been.  A lot of the dresses looked as though they would fit me...I guess I would have fit in back then. We saw a number of other exhibits but before long the girls needed a change of scenery from Museums.

Self explaining photo!

One place we were told to take a look at is the famous

Harrod's department store.

Harrods department store.  Wow, talk about fish out of water!  It was nice to see but you know it is expensive when there are security guards every 20 feet and there are no prices on the merchandise.  I was afraid to move or even touch anything.

Before we made our way back to Jen’s we wandered the streets in search of Buckingham Palace.  When we finally arrived we were a little disappointed as it did not seem as grand as we were expecting.  Some of the other buildings we had seen were more elaborate and breathtaking but none the less it was nice to finally see the palace. It was also neat to see the guards in their red uniforms and as Alyssa would say...furry hats!

What a great day of exploring which involved approximately 9 ½ hrs of walking.  I think we might all be a little sore tomorrow!

Alyssa in front of Buckingham Palace.