London, day 5 - July 5, 2016

We're getting ready to take the tube one last time to King's Cross and St. Pancras train stations to catch the Eurostar train to Paris this morning.  We've had such a wonderful time in London with Kelli and Tim, I can't believe it's coming to an end already.  We had another full day Tuesday - first up was the tube to Richmond to the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens.  Kew is a vast expanse of grounds covered with all variety of trees and plants, some of them much older than the US is as a country.  We explored the Palm House, with its basement aquarium, and the balcony walkway, putting us even with or above the tops of the 30-foot palms.  Next door was a water lily greenhouse, with lily pads 3 feet or more across and long yellow gourds the same length as the lily pads.  There was the Princess Diana Conservatory, an alpine plants display, and a rock garden too, and that was just within close proximity to the entrance.  We cut across the grounds toward the treetop canopy walkway, checking out interesting trees as we walked.  One that Margo found fascinating was enormous and quite old, having been moved there in the 1700s - tall enough to have a lightning rod/cable installed on it.  There was also a grove of monkey puzzle trees, a species that we've seen in Ireland and Scotland as well.  The newest installation at Kew, which just opened in June, is called The Hive - it's a metal structure designed after a real beehive - which highlights the actions of and challenges facing bees.  The structure is somehow linked to the activities of one of the grounds' beehives so that their activity levels cause changes in the lights and sound at the structure itself.  At the base of the structure, you could use thin wooden popsicle sticks to feel and hear the vibrations and sounds made by bees in different situations.  Very cool!  All over the grounds, there were signs giving facts and tips about bees and how they collect nectar and pollinate vast varieties of flowers and food.


From the hive, we moved on to the treetop canopy walkway, with its staircase leading up to the tops of the British plane trees in that area.  What a gorgeous view!  At the base was a mosaic representation of the insects and fungi that live symbiotically with the trees in their roots.  By then we were ready for lunch  - fish pie, cauliflower gratin, treacle tart, tomato salad - all delicious and enjoyed at a table under the grapevines at the Pavilion cafe on the Kew grounds.

Our last stop on the London tour was Hampton Court Palace in Kingston-on-Thames, the palace Cardinal Thomas Wolsley built up and turned over to King Henry VIII and later used by King William III.  The palace is enormous, as are the grounds, including vast gardens of flowers, fruit trees, and vegetables.  We tried out the oldest hedge maze in Great Britain and managed to find our way to the center and back out again.  Then we toured parts of the palace with an audio recorded tour, listening to descriptions of young Henry's life and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (which lasted 20 years, longer than all of his other marriages combined) as well as his dealings with Cardinal Wolsley; the palace kitchens and how they functioned to feed over 600 people in Henry's court; and Henry's sumptuous apartments and his later life and marriages to Anne Bolyn, Jane Seymore, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Parr, and Catherine Howard.  We probably could have spent an entire day at Kew and another full day at Hampton Court (especially since the Hampton Court flower show was going on too).  A quick tour through the various gardens, including the "Great Vine", a massive grapevine from Henry VIII times and a Guinness Book of World Records holder, and it was time to figure out how to get back home.  We had taken the tube and 2 buses (including a double decker!) to get to Kew and then Hampton Court, and we tried to reverse that, but our travel cards had dipped into negative balance so we couldn't get on the 2nd bus back.  So we bought tickets to take the regular train several miles to another tube station, adding to the variety of transportation we've tried here (including a classic black cab, where the driver's have to study for years to pass a test - they have to know every street in greater London!)  Back in Ruislip, we met Tim at Istanbul restaurant for some Turkish food for dinner, effectively wrapping up our last night in London.