Kensington Palace

Kensington Gardens have been our front yard and playground while in London.  But today we took a look inside Kensington Palace, the former home of Queen Victoria, King George I, and Queen Anne, and the current home of Will and Kate. 

Queen Vicky herself, standing guard over the palace entrance.

There were three wings of the palace open.  (The fourth, which will show "Modern Royals" opens next year.)  TheVictoria wing had some lovely things in it.  This wing housed the "Queen's Apartments" (i.e., Queen Anne) and for some reason it was excessively gloomy and spooky.  They hold "Eerie Evenings," even when it's not Halloween.  The whole palace was over-curated--the displays overwhelmed the actual artifacts so that often you couldn't tell what was what and whether it was real or not. 

Still, the views out the window were lovely.

But this is what I'm talking about.  The sign says "Queen Anne's eighteen little hopes," with 18 small chairs (not original to the palace, I don't think) and a china plate wrapped in gold twine on each one.  Huh?  If there was an explanation somewhere, we didn't see it.  It just looked like something from a horror movie.

This is more like what we were expecting--one of the ballrooms from King George I's apartments.

With a gaudy but impressive ceiling.

Another painted ceiling in one of the meeting rooms.  Here some of the docents were in costume and character, just mingling with the tourists.  Again, too odd for my liking.  (I prefer my docents to have a badge and speak my language, not dress in period costume and talk to me like I'm from the 18th century.  Let's keep the division between reality and fantasy very clear, please.)

George I's main ballroom.

The whole place may have been over-curated, but the signs for the toilets demonstrated admirable whimsy.

The formal garden at Kensington.

Pop-pop.  (For those who don't know, Pop-pop is a squirrel in an ongoing series of stories I spontaneously make up for the girls every now and then.  It was very kind of him to join us here at Kensington.)

C and E getting some kicks out of their candy canes, purchased at the gift store at Kensington.  They tell us that candy tastes better when it's bought at a royal gift shop.