It's finally sunny in London!
Totally loving the sunny weather. The sky is a clear blue color and the wind feels nice and crisp against my skin.
I'm going to miss London. I love major cities that carry an underground public transportation system. It just makes traveling so much easier, cheaper, and independent. Sometimes, I feel like cars encumber us, we gotta pay parking fees, fill up the oil, find a place to park the darn thing ... but with the subway / tube / metro, you just kinda hop on to it and go.
Today, I finally used the ticket I had bought at the Tower of London to Hampton Court Palace. The journey there took about 5 pounds and an extra hour or less, but it was worth it. I had to take a separate train to get to the Hampton Court.
Hampton Court Palace is located southwest of London, away from the city and towards the suburbs. While the interior of the castle and the actual castle itself is amazing in architecture, gradeur, opulence and extravagance, I fell in love with the gardens. It's the same with the Palace of Versailles. I couldn't help be in awe of how the royalty must have lived in these grand palaces, but at the same time, I can't help being much more impressed with the gardens. I think just whiling away the time in these gardens as courtiers and courtesans would be soooo romantic. I wouldn't mind spending my every waking minute just to reading a book in the gardens or having a picnic in the gardens or taking an afternoon nap in the gardens or just getting lost in the gardens. It's just so beautiful with the fountains and the how much care has to be put into these gardens to maintain their beauty.
Of course, learning how the Henry VIII lived in the palace and how the servants cooked food for the royalty was like relearning my history lessons. There's just so much to being a royal that gets forgotten. Like how King William the III had about 3 bedchambers. One which was public, so any citizen could watch him sleep. The second on which was reserved more special people like foreign ministers and the third was his actual private bedchamber, which he pretty much didn't leave. He also had the same thing for dining rooms and throne rooms, but I think they said he was a private person and hated the public spectacle aspect of being a monarch, so even though he had those extra public entertaing rooms, he pretty much chose to stay in his private quarters, which made him an unpopular monarch amongst the people.
I stayed at the Kensington Palace much longer than I had planned. By the time I returned back to the heart of London, it was nearly 3pm. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tate Modern. It was so beautiful and scenic, walking along the River Thames. I wish the weather was like this everyday in London.
The Tate Modern is this pretty cool building for a museum. They host some really interesting exhibitions, half of them are free and the other ones aren't. I just went to the free ones even though I really wanted to see their Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibition since pop art is usually always fun to see, but it cost £11, which is kinda excessive for a museum.
Their free exhibitions are pretty good already. They have Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg (my favorite modern artist), Roy Lichtenstein, Linda Benglis, etc. I took some pictures of the ones I liked, even though we weren't supposed to, but no one noticed bwahaha.
Then, I crossed the Millenium Bridge. It was spectacular. I love the view of Thames River you get from all these bridges. I had fun pretending I was in the 6th Harry Potter movie when the Death Eaters attacked the Millenium Bridge.
Finally, I ended my day with a trip to St. Paul's Cathedral. It's literally right in front of the Millenium Bridge, so that was perfect. I didn't get to go in because I believe it was closed, but I took some pictures of it on the outside. It probably cost extra to go in. Seriously, sight seeing in London has put a bit of strain on my budget, it's not as affordable as sight seeing in Paris, which is kinda unfortunate. While most museums are free, all the national monuments, palaces, and they don't have packages for them (don't get the London Pass, it's not worth it), so it costs an arm and a leg to see them.
Well, I'm heading off to Manchester tomorrow where I can finally take it easy without having to rush off everyday at like 7am to be a tourist. I'll be staying with my cousin in Manchester, so hopefully I'll be able to do some window shopping. I wanted to visit Selfridge, Harrod's and Primark before I went to Manchester, but I didn't have enough time.
So for now, I can only they have a Selfridge and a Primark in Manchester.
Until then, I'm going to sleep early so I won't miss my bus. Yup, I wanted to save money, so instead of spending £15 on a train ticket to Manchester, I'm spending £5 and taking the bus. So instead of arriving in Mancester in two hours, I'll be arriving in four hours. I'm fine with that because it'll give me some time to process all the things I've done so far. I haven't really had the time to look at my pictures or truly soak in London's countryside so taking the bus will be good for me.
|
