LONDON WITH A 16-YEAR OLD - Part II

It's another beautiful London day so let's start with a walk to Kensington Palace.  I've been to London a dozen times but never toured Kensington--odd, right?

We walked from our hotel and stopped at this darling flower corner--

Passed by this cute sign....

But wait, first we need to pop in to the L.K. Bennett shop....look at those gorgeous bags!

But, I digress.  Back to the Palace.


And, voila, there she is.  Kensington Palace.

Of course, I've been to the gates of Kensington Palace, but never toured the place.

So, of we go....

       I loved the various exhibits at Kensington.  All were well put together and cleverly laid out.

             Sitting in the window sill you could hear a little audio about court gossip--very fun.

Up the King's Grand Staircase darling lanterns are posted with little characters representing the various staff members of the palace.

                       Here are a few of my favorite imaginary must-have household staff...

                                   Lady of the Bedchamber....all around assistant to the Queen

                             The Chocolate Maker...every home/palace needs one of those, right?

                                                   The Hairdresser...an absolute must.

                                                                   Loved this clock!

                  Aren't these silhouettes a pretty way to discourage people from getting too close?

                   Snapped this pic through the window--crowns atop all of the outside lanterns.

                         My niece noted that the UK has much cooler restroom signs than we do.

                Back outside for a bit of a stroll...

Always a bench photo...

And this is the only picture I took of the Victoria and Albert Museum--we had lunch outdoors after touring the pearl exhibit.  I was not on my picture-snapping game!  But nice to prove there was a bit of blue in the patchwork skies.

We were then off up the street to Harrod's and had dinner at a pub for more fish and chips. I wore a pedometer on this trip (always say I'm going to and never remember to grab the pedometer, this time I did)--we averaged around 22,000 steps a day.  Probably the reason we slept so great every single night.

         Here is what greeted us in our pretty hotel lobby at St. Ermin's.  So many little details.

                             
The tea room at St. Ermin's--I regret we didn't take the time to have afternoon tea.  But we shall return!

And this, my friends, are the beehives kept by the hotel to produce delicious St. Ermin's honey, which we had at breakfast.  Isn't this the coolest?  One of the staff members took us on a little tour of the hotel and then brought us to the rooftop to see their beehives.  Love this.  Perfect hotel for our trip.