Walk. Walk. Walk some more.

Today was a massive day of walking. Seriously. RunKeeper informs me that we walked 25 kilometres today. Now wait while I convert that into miles…

Day 3 of London on Flickr has been added to the set:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646667980697/

Kew Gardens was quite expensive at 15 pounds for an adult (I save a whole 1 POUND as a student, whoop-de-freakin-doo), but it was somewhere I had wanted to go, and hadn’t gone last time I was in London. It’s a truly enormous Royal Botanical Garden about half an hour by tube west of the City of London.

There was so much to see as well. From when we went in, we headed northwest towards the Temperate House and Queen Charlotte’s Cottage. Both were closed - Temperate House for 5 years (!) and the cottage, we found out later, is only open on weekends. But in that half of the park, there’s basically no manicured anything, just a green space with a couple of Oriental buildings and one of the largest compost heaps in Europe. Whaaaatt??? Who thought that was a selling point?:

West half of Kew Gardens

The eastern half of Kew Gardens was much more interesting for me. Full of old buildings and manicured flower beds. Some of the buildings there included the Royal Kitchens, Kew Palace, an Orangery, an enormous Palm House, and a conservatory with all sorts of exotic desert and rainforest plants:

East half of Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is renowned as a place where you can see a peacock or two. We saw two, and on both occasions people acted like complete fools around them, scaring them off. No, do NOT sit on the bench showing it the photo you just took with your iPad. No, do NOT let your 10-year-old chase after it. Fools:

Peacocks of the gardens

The second half of the afternoon was devoted to seeing more of central London. We wandered through Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, past Carlton House and into Trafalgar Square. There were so many highlights:

London as the sun goes down

We (well, dad and I) also got up on the Trafalgar Square Lions and took our photos. Apparently you might not be able to for much longer - the lions are suffering damage from years of being clambered on:

Trafalgar Square Lion

M&Ms World just past Leicester Square was incredible. The ground floor was the highest floor, with second more storeys extending below ground. There was M&Ms everything, from make-your-own bag mixes to stationery, shirts and fridge magnets. No, I didn’t buy anything:

M&Ms World

After that we shared a couple of pizzas near Leicester Square before heading back to Croydon. That’s it from London, tomorrow we journey to King’s Lynn to meet one of mum’s relatives. Until tomorrow!

Rain. Meh.

For the second of our two days in London, it rained pretty solidly all day. It is truly uninspiring how awful the weather has been since mum arrived. It's a curse, I tell you!

Scroll down in Flickr to reveal day 2 in London:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646667980697/

Mum decided that she wanted to go into the city for the day to visit some inside stuff, while dad and I decided that we would go to a couple of National Trust attractions to the south of the city in Kent.

First on the list was Knole House, one of the largest houses in England, with centuries of history and a massive 1,000-acre deer park. Photography wasn't allowed inside the house itself, but was permitted in all the outside areas. There were several really nice manicured gardens, as well as the impressive facade of the house:

Knole House

In a bit of a drizzle we drove a bit further west to Chartwell House, the personal residence of Sir Winston Churchill. All the rooms had been altered to what they would have looked like in Churchill's day. I learned a lot about Churchill, including that he was also a very accomplished painter. He often painted in the enormous grounds on which Chartwell sits. Again no photography, so outside photos only:

Chartwell

That concluded our sightseeing for the day. After picking mum up, we headed to the carvery, which has a 6 pound special where you get unlimited veggies and limited meat. Even so you get an enormous pile of meat to start off with. We're still living off McDonalds WiFi over here, but O2 has this really good WiFi hotspot system going, so that whenever you're near a Subway, McDonalds, or other connected cafe or shop, you are connected to the WiFi for free!

Tomorrow looks like the rain might hold out, so we can go into London and do it properly!

This is CRAAAAP!!!

Yup, that pretty much sums up today. Mum concurred as well:

What's the weather like, mum?

Mum and I traipsed around London all day today, like idiots, huddled under that one single red umbrella between us. Dad abandoned us at Waddon Station, near our hotel, and went further to the south to see a National Trust property. He also decided to give up after seeing a massive traffic queue, and turned around and came back again.

The beginnings of London are now on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646667980697/

From Croydon to London Victoria was about 45 minutes on the train, and then we went a bit further upriver to Tower Bridge, where we started what we thought would be a long walk down the riverside. After bitching about the rain, we thought about going into the Tower of London itself. Why not? (a) There were large parts of the tower outdoors (b) There was a one-hour outdoor queue to get in (c) 22 POUNDS per person! Pass. I managed to take a few photos of Tower Bridge:

Tower Bridge

For a brief respite, we headed to the Tower Bridge gift shop, coming away with several souvenirs. Some t-shirts not in my size, I will be taking my pounds elsewhere! We then walked up to Hays Galleria, near the HMS ship permanently moored on the Thames:

Hays Galleria

From there, we headed back across the Thames on another bridge and caught the Tube to Embankment, where we caught a brief glimpse of both Big Ben and the London Eye. The rain was too heavy at that stage, so we went closer to Westminster station. I got a few decent photos, including the typical London photo of Westminster Bridge and Westminster Abbey with a London double decker on:

Westminster area

By then we had well and truly decided to abandon the day, so back to Croydon on the train. Tomorrow we'll see what the weather is doing - we may all end up doing something different!

Go via...

It's a unique family talent, turning an hour's drive into a whole day's worth of entertainment. Today we drove from Plumpton Green to Croydon (north of Brighton to south of London), with a couple of 'travel vias', as our GPS likes to call them.

You can see them on Flickr here:

Bodiam Castle: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646586393347/
Tunbridge Wells: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646627144758/

We saw a sign on the gate near our cottage we were staying in, which was quite funny when the friendly 'dog' rocked up to see us off:

LOOK OUT! Vicious attack... pig?

First up was Bodiam Castle, a ruinous castle a bit further east from the Brighton and Hove area. Another free entry courtesy of National Trust, and we found it was actually quite nice. It was really photogenic surrounded by its moat, the sun fully out, and a few white clouds wandering across the sky:

Bodiam Castle

There were some explanations as to what each of the rooms likely meant. There were also really nice views from the two towers that were open to the public, even though there were serious queues of people getting up and down (only one staircase for both directions combined). There was also a steam train running a little way from the castle. I managed to get a couple of photos, which was a bonus.

Mum had pointed out Royal Tunbridge Wells, on a straight line from Bodiam Castle to Croydon. It is famous mostly for The Pantiles, a yuppy shopping street with jazz bands playing and a spring right up one end. The spring was closed 'due to poor water flow'. Whatever that means:

Royal Tunbridge Wells

I managed a quick nap between Royal Tunbridge Wells and Croydon. Although we didn't want to pay the money grabbers at the Hilton 15 pounds for 24 hours of internet, there is a McDonalds literally around the corner, so connectivity should be good there. Until tomorrow!