I never got tired of that Big Ben view! In addition to sitting in bed watching the sun set, I took pictures of it every morning from the executive lounge during breakfast. We were lucky to stock up on food (and coffee and chocolate) each morning so we weren't hangry as we were seeing the sights. Because while I usually have our meals perfectly planned out on vacations, for this part of our trip, I made zero plans. So that ended up meaning 3 full lounge breakfasts, snacks for lunch, and room service or McDonald's for dinner.
Our destination this day was Kensington Palace which was going to require a ride on the Underground. However, when we got outside, the temperatures were mild and the sun was shining, so we used our London Pass privileges on the hop on-hop off bus and rode via tour bus over to the stop for KP. I was very pleasantly surprised by all of the green space around the palace. It reminded me of Central Park in New York. We enjoyed people (and dog and squirrel and bird) watching before heading inside for a self-guided tour.
After our time inside learning more about Queen Victoria and seeing Princess Diana's fashions on special exhibit (whew, that was a claustrophobic room!), we retired to the café for Jell-O and then walked around in the palace gardens. I also did some online research about where all the current royals live in the castle currently. (Spoiler alert: we didn't run into any!) And even though it was brisk and William had just eaten a snack, we got another one at the ice cream truck on our way out! I mean, we needed energy to walk to the Natural History Museum!
After our long day, we retired back to the executive lounge to plot out a plan for dinner. William and I were too tired to leave the hotel again, so we went to the first floor near the London Eye where there was a McDonald's and got cheeseburgers to eat in our room. John's wine/espresso combo got him the energy to walk across the river to a traditional pub. I don't blame him for not wanting McD! And I don't blame me for crawling into bed and appeasing a jet lagged kid. The lizard was William's first souvenir of the trip. A nice 3 pound find at the Natural History museum gift shop.
By this time it was mid-afternoon and our feet were getting tired. At least time were. But we were in the "neighborhood" of the Natural History Museum, and this was our only time over in this area, so we popped in. Luckily, like a lot of London attractions, the admission is free. They ask for a 5 pound donation or charge for a map or audio guide but you technically could go in for free. Since we were only invested the 5 pounds, I didn't feel bad knowing we would last less than 2 hours. I had a list of "must sees" including dinosaur fossils and the casts from Pompeii. We saw those plus much more!
