N and N's New Adventure: Day24. June 18, 2012

Day 24. June 18, 2012. Monday

We watched BBC news to see what the weather will bring us today. It appeared the weather would be unrainy, so we decided a trip to Kew Gardens would be the activity for the day. We stopped at Subway for a breakfast sandwich which was not too bad. We walked on to Victoria to catch a bus to Westminster and Parliament Square. Our favorite bus route #24 took us there. London can be used to define traffic congestion. Wow!

We walked to the Thames River Boat tours. We could have taken the tube, but you don't see much of the city. We could have taken the bus, but we wanted to get there today. The river won.

The river boat to Kew does not mess around with narratives about the city. It just moves people down the river. We took seats in the very front of the boat...a great view. We saw many, many interesting and unusual buildings. There seems to be quite a fascination with buildings that resemble stair steps. The trip to the Kew Pier took about one and one half hours.

The hull of the boat that took us down river was part of the invasion of Dunkirk. The ship suffered a fire in the 1970's and was rebuilt as a on deck cruise ship. The hull was actually over a hundred years old.

We walked the half mile to the gardens, paid our entrance fee, and began our tour of the gardens. The gardens are immense. We went to the Orangery which was originally used to grow orange trees. It was rehabbed into another purpose for many years. It was then decided to turn it back into an orangery. Unfortunately, the humidity from growing the orange trees started to rot the building. Once again the orange trees were gone. The building was refurbished into a cafe for the gardens.

Kew Gardens is 300 acres of trees, flowers, grasses, and other plants. There are over 30,000 plants and trees and 40 listed buildings in the gardens. There are six greenhouses. The Palm House which was built in 1844 and contains plants from tropical rainforests. The water lily house contains one pond with lily pads as big as my dining room table. We wandered through Princess of Wales Conservatory, which contains plants from ten climatic zones. It has everything from cacti to ferns to orchids to carnivorous plants.

We went through the grass garden where 550 different types of grasses. We especially enjoyed the corn plants. We walked through the heritage tree section and looked at trees that were planted in the 1700's. There are trees from all over the world. Apparently the UK has a wonderful climate for growing all kinds of things....bamboo to oak trees.

We took the tram around the Gardens to get an overview of the park. We saw many of the great sculptures that David Nash had carved from the trunks of trees that have reached the end of their natural lives. There were some huge sculptures made from an old eucalyptus tree. We went through the redwood grove. We saw the 10 story pagoda built in 1762. Apparently, it should have an odd number of floors to bring good luck. It originally had a good number of gold ornaments which were removed to pay the gambling debts of George or William the IV.

By 4:00 AM our poor feet were beginning to tire. We walked back to Kew Pier to catch the boat back to London. The boat back was nothing special. As a matter of fact the only goal of the crew was together us back to Westminster Pier in an hour.

After the ride we walked the three blocks to catch the number 24 bus to Trafalger Square. We walked around a bit when Neil spotted a restaurant called Garfunkels. This is a branch of a place we ate at in 2010. We crossed and had dinner. We even found out that the one by Victoria had been torn down for a new addition to Victoria Underground.

After dinner we caught the number 24 bus back to the Belgrave neighborhood and to Sainsbury for the evenings diet Cokes and breakfast muffins.

Back to the easyhotel to collapsed our one piece of furniture.

Steps today: 16,549

Getting to Kew Gardens