Kensington Palace

Thursdays are always my adventure days! So yesterday, we went to Kensington Palace. It was gorgeous! We had to walk through Kensington Gardens to get to the palace and I loved it there. There was a Princess Diana memorial fountain and playground. There were dogs everywhere (made me miss my dogs!) and a little lake with swans everywhere. They recently finished a huge 2 year renovation of Kensington Palace and now the tours through the palace are very fancy! You can see the oldest part of the Palace where the last of the Stewarts lived (William III and Mary II), King George I and II's apartments, and finally, Queen Victoria's apartments. Each of these had very cool decorations and displays everywhere. There were also "whispering walls" in each room that were telling the stories of the room and the history. The "Victoria Revealed" section was my favorite. They had excerpts from her diaries painted on the walls, on the display cases, on the floor, all over the place. They had some of her clothes, including her wedding dress, which was gorgeous! They had several of her paintings and sketches, along with her children's toys and clothes. The whole exhibit goes through her entire life and tells her story. I learned so much about her and Prince Albert that I didn't know before! Kensington Palace is also the long-term residence of Will and Kate!! (What if they were there when I was there?!!!!?!!)

There was the most beautiful grand staircase leading to the quarters of Kings George I and George II. This area was so ornately decorated and they had costumes from the court that were just unbelievable. After we were done going through everything, we went to the shop. After an initial freak out, I managed to only buy a few postcards and stamps. We had lunch there and headed back to campus.

I learned that Band-aids are called plasters. Weird.