And... Back to London?

I'm too lazy to post any photos today, but I had a good adventure, so I thought I would at least write about it.

After returning from London this weekend, Russell and I realized we still had Matt's camera in our backpack. Damn. So today I used the fact that the maid was coming to clean our apartment as an excuse to head back to London to return the camera. Of course, that only took about 45 minutes and the train ticket cost 28 pounds (roughly $56) so I certainly wasn't just going to head home again.

My first plan was to go to the National Museum of Art. This was touted as one of London's best displays of European paintings from the 15th-19th centuries. It did not dissapoint. Of course, I was most impressed with their Spanish artwork... but I'm biased, aren't I? It was fun watching a curator make bunny ears with a bunch of kindergarteners in the 15th century art alcove. I never did figure out what that was all about, but the kids seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly. There were quite a few school groups, actually. I eavesdropped on several of them.

I finished at the art museum around 1:00 and after a quick lunch, headed to Kensington Park. In my mind I envisioned a private garden that you had to pay to get into, but this wasn't the case at all. In fact, Hyde Park pretty much becomes Kensington Garden if you keep going far enough. The only barrier between them is a narrow road. It was largely just more grass, trees and foot paths (not that there's anything wrong with that... and who can beat free?). At the far end of the park was Kensington Palace, and since I still had time before anyone would miss me at home, I decided to take the tour. The first floor was quite dissapointing. It felt like touring through any older house with no furniture in it. The lighting wasn't terribly good, the rooms were small and cramped... I was regretting having paid so much to get in. But then I hit the second floor. Guess where the King and Queen lived? While there was still a general lack of furniture (with a few exceptions) there were huge paintings on the walls and ceilings, interesting shaped rooms, information about the royalty that had lived there, a painting of a fat Venus... it was great.

Apparently Kensington was bought by the William the III to get away from the smog of the city (it was a country estate at the time... not anymore). Sir Christopher Wren added onto the place and in 1718 and George I (who had the strongest influence on the current state of the building that's open to the public) had a great deal of interior work done by William Kent, including paintings both directly on the ceilings and walls and more traditional paintings. Different royals had different relationships to Kensington Palace (some lived there extensively while Queen Anne hated the place because her husband died there), but to this day parts of the palace are still in use as a royal residence. Charles and Diana lived there until they divorced (at which point, Diana continued to live there until her death). Its odd to think that on the other side of the "do not enter" sign could be someone's home... but I imagine they leave a wide berth between the royals and the plebes.

After exploring Kensington I hiked back to the Subway and came home. I need to get some better shoes if I'm going to keep doing this much walking...