Royal Kensington and Chelsea

Today was wet! Very wet. The perfect day for some inside exploring. We were off to the British Museum and Tower of London.

British Museum was up first. This huge museum was a wonder. We could have spent he whole day there and still not seen everything. We only had a few hours though so we prioritised Ancient Egypt, Assyria and Greece. These were all things both of us had learnt about during our year 12 schooling so it was pretty amazing to see things in the flesh. The colossal statues of this powerful Pharaohs and lavish palaces of the Assyrian Kings. It was just so amazing to actual visualise these actual things that existed so many years ago. Even stories from the bible we learn’t as kids, seeing the actual palaces from those times really brings what it would have been like to life. I never really pictured much of the city of Nineveh but seeing the actual palace walls in real life depicting carvings of what life was like there really brought it to life.
We dove into history for a few hours before time got away from us and we had to get across to the grand Tower of London. Not before a quick pit stop at the local bookshop though.

We made it to the Tower of London, grabbed our audio guides and set off in the rain to explore this incredible castle and fortress. This was a real step back in time. All the way back to William the Conquerer. Originally it started out as a prison, then part of it became a royal palace, a store house for military weapons and now it’s a museum of war weapons and of course the home of The Crown Jewels.

After exploring the history for a while we wandered in to see the Crown Jewels. Jo was very excited! We took the constantly moving travellator past quite a few times before we could move on. These jewels were very bedazzling, under all the lights they sparkled like crazy. Some of the jewels were incredible! We found out that this was home to the largest cut diamond in the world, the Cullinan diamond. Originally 3,106 carats and the size of a baseball it was cut down and forms different parts of the crown jewels. Unfortunately Queen Lizzy’s crown was in use so we couldn’t see the state crown. With the latest British election Boris Johnson had stolen it for the day.
Must admit though, this huge display of wealth was all a bit much I think. Traditions or not you could see why the poorer class would have despised the royal family sometimes.
We hung around the castle until sunset which was such stunning lighting with the tower bridge in the background.

From there we were heading home. We were on babysitting duty tonight so James and Jess could enjoy dinner and a show. It was nice to have a night relaxing at home actually. We waved them off, got Hudsy to bed and put ourselves to bed not long after.

A very historically informative day!

Asher ☺️En savoir plus