London, United Kingdom

Today was a really lovely cloudless blue sky and a lovely morning for our mini hike of 3.2km to Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guards. Google map said it would take us 45 mins, and with waiting to cross roads it took us a further 10 minutes. We could have hopped on a bus with our Oyster card but there was a fair amount of traffic and all the buses we saw were crammed with people, as well as waiting lines at bus stops.

The walk was interesting also as we are in a good suburb of ‘South Kensington’ and the route took us on a main road through Kensington, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. We had a look at a real estate window and a 1 bedroom apartment would set you back around £1.6 million and a 2-3 bedroom with a view onto a little common grassed area a mere £8 million! The pictures of the interiors looked nice but I don’t think they even came furnished. The buildings are typical London – tall, all next to each other and brick or stone and ranging from 3 1/2 stories to 5. There are not a lot of high rises in London that we have seen and streets are quite wide which makes it seem more of an ‘open’ city which is quite deceptive really as Vern says it needs to be wide for the millions of people in it which is true as you are always weaving your way in and out and around bodies. So the general area is quite posh and nice looking including the rich tan building of Harrods which takes up nearly a block.

As we got closer to the palace the crowds got thicker and you walk through one of the Royal Parks – Green Parks – on a promenade till you hit the square. On the corner of Green and Hyde Park there is a Memorial roundabout and it has a very interesting NZ monument in a modern style of black poles arranged in the shape of the Southern Cross. On each pole is a different story and interesting little shapes or detail from fantails to rugby balls, Polynesian, Maori and European, old and new. It was rather moving to walk around and read it – identifying with home.
Back to the changing of the guards there were masses of people, perhaps 3,000 or more all with the same agenda as us. We are getting used to it now and simply navigated best we could to the big central fountain to get an elevated view. The band was playing and we got to see the change ok, but I was disappointed they did not have ‘bear hats’ on. Maybe its a winter uniform? It was quite a cool, but strange feeling to think that the Queen was inside the building in front of us. The palace is surrounded by a lot of greenery with her own private royal garden (park size) and then at least 4 other ‘Royal Gardens’ or rather big parks; St James, Hyde, Green, and Kensington.

Some are a couple of blocks away but they are not too far and are really rather lovely for a city to have so much greenery with huge trees making you almost forget you are in a big city – except for all the people. There are deer roaming in one of them (fenced from traffic), and in St James where we strolled there are pelicans, geese, ducks, and other water birds as well as squirrels. There are lots of grand statues and memorials, lovely flower plantings and simply open spaces.

We followed a ‘Princess Diana Memorial Walk’ for a bit around St James Park before heading to Harrods for the famous food hall and lunch. This was certainly an experience, when you walk through the door you smell the money. There was an annual sale on and after lunch we were going to have a peek but the clothes are pretty ‘High street’ which don’t exactly come in my size .. They may have had a voluptuous section but it is so huge we nearly got lost finding the food hall. There are 5 floors, each has its own couple of eateries and restaurants and we thought we may try a ‘sandwich’ house on the third floor. At £13 pounds approx we gave that a miss and looked at a ‘tea house’ on 2nd floor – that was just as bad with sweets around £9 (albeit gorgeous), the Italian place was over £20 for a dish so we headed to ground floor food hall.

Now forget any images you have of food halls at home in shopping centres, even those in the upper level department stores. This was a Patisserie, Boulangerie, Sushi and Sashimi, Bakery, and every deli cuisine in-between. A lot you could purchase for re-heating at home and as it was about 3pm, Vern did not want too much that would ruin his appetite for dinner so we got a special cake, Portuguese custard tart, and a lobster and salmon mousse for £18 and enjoyed a picnic outside. The cake was a crispy choux pastry filled with a champagne, honey and hint of lavender creme patisserie, with strawberry compote in the middle – decorated with gold leaf. As you can see from the picture it all looked stunning and tasted just as good. Whilst we got lost a couple of times trying to find the food places on the various levels we were impressed by the quality and array of items for sale – they even had a writing desk section, an expensive ‘pen’ section to name a few items. There is the famous ‘Egyptian escalator’ in the middle of the building which we felt very posh riding up and down on and at the bottom is the memorial to Diana and Dodi which was sad to see and reflect on. Yes, both wealthy and privileged but he was an only son and she a loved mum and daughter and any life taken early is very sad.

We had a little rest at home before dinner at an Indian close by, so we could enjoy this cuisine which is meant to be so good in the UK. I figure you have guessed where I am heading on this one but it was a real rip off. £49 – our most expensive meal and it was only two mains and a juice. You had to pay an extra 12% service fee (only on one page of the menu in the tiniest print pointed out to us afterwards), you had to pay for boiled rice – £3.30 for about 1.5 C small serve. Vern had a butter chicken (very unusual with coconut like a Korma) and I had a Prawn curry starting with B. The food was ok – but I have had a lot better at home. We were spitting tacks but all we could do was write a terrible review on Tripadvisor – to which we saw there were at least 50% bad reviews. Normally we check but it was one of the few times we didn’t and there you go.
Tripadvisor reviews do give you a good impression if you go by the majority to give you an average overall opinion. They are also very good for hotels and activities – with now the added knowledge that you need to dig a little and check which room people had – as I am confident a very good rating is most likely to be from the better grade of rooms.

We treated ourselves to 2 ciders from the Supermarket to drown out our Indian. This time we tried a Somerset cloudy ‘oak’ aged scrumpy which had a higher alcohol level and more intense flavour. I think I have successfully drunk a cider trail from all regions of the UK and enjoyed every drop. I couldn’t name a favourite as they were all very very nice!