Kensington Palace and Other London Treats!

I wonder how many people living in the capital actually go out and see the sights? I’m sure we lots of us see them every single day on our ways to and from work, the London Eye, Big Ben… I used to work next door to the Tower of London, but do we ever really look? When you live in London I’m not sure it’s easy to make the time? As a visitor, as I was when visiting New York, you make an itinerary and you go, you see. As a resident I think you just assume you’ll get round to it at some point – and then you don’t…

Since having children I have done so much more, seen lots of the things wonderful London has to offer and you know what? We live in a fantastic Capital with SO much going on! For children I really do think THIS is the City to be in! I used to think moving OUT of London was what we would and should do once we had babies but I now realise that if we did, we would probably be quite, quite bored. Sure Norfolk, where we are from, is beautiful and it has lots of open green spaces. The schools have playing fields and country air is better for you but it doesn’t have a lot to actually DO!

I remember growing up and always saying to my Mum ‘What can I do? Where can we go?’ There’s a limit to how many times you can ride your bike down to the bottom of the fields and when you do go for a day trip, if you want to stay in Norwich and not drive out into the county, there’s really only the Castle Museum… It’s interesting and in fairness it’s a lot better than it used to be, but we went there for practically every school trip when I was a child. I take the children when we go back to Norwich because they do now have some fun things for little ones but still there isn’t really many other options in the City aside from a rather ropy soft play and the park which is lovely… If it’s a nice day! But if it rains then what?

Here in London we are spoilt for choice and to top it all off lots of the Museums are completely FREE! There are some wonderful things for children to see and do and for the cost of your travel the City is there for the taking! I have lists and lists of favourite places which are either very inexpensive or totally fancy free, The Museum of Childhood which is part of the V&A, The Museum of London Docklands and it’s amazing Mudlarks play area (make sure you book a slot for the free play), Discover in Stratford, which I wrote a bit more about in another post this week, is very affordable and periodically has a FREE day, The Science Museum with the Basement area for under fives, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground… I could make a list as long as my arm, London is simply just great for children!

One of our favourite days out is going to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground followed by the Science Museum or the other way round, they are within about a ten minute walk from each other. We don’t even look round most of the museum, we visit the vacuum cleaner donated to them by my own Grandmother and then we go to ‘The Basement’ area and that’s pretty much all we have time for with a trip to the park. It’s a day out we do fairly frequently and we never get bored. Florence loves the splashing in the water play as well as the mini experiments. On our last visit she enjoyed looking at all the space ships too which you walk through on your way to the basement; I think on our next visit we might explore a bit further… and the playground, well… there’s no denying it has to be one of the best ever! We visited last week with some friends and had such a good time as always!

The Princess Diana memorial park is such fun!

And we found something new to explore in the Science Museum…

Both of those activities are obviously aimed at the children but sometimes it’s good to do something adult too so on our trip last week we also combined it with a new visit for us! Somewhere we’ve not been to before but decided we would quite like to go, Kensington Palace!When you have the little ones with you it’s always good to go to places which are children friendly even if not directly aimed at them and I’m pleased to say that Kate and Will’s London pad was very accommodating for our buggy needs. The staff were brilliant at helping us and taking us up back ways in a lift then showing us which way to turn so that we didn’t miss anything. There wasn’t an awful lot on offer for children to actually do but there were enough touches here and there to make it do-able with little ones.

There really are only three areas to explore inside the Palace, The King and Queen’s separate state apartments and then Queen Victoria revealed. She was born at Kensington Palace and lived her formative years there. I found the exhibition to be very interesting and had a really good mooch around with my friend and our children. I particularly enjoyed the ‘play room’ which is the room Queen Victoria was born in! They have lots of traditional toys in a toy box that the children can get out and explore so that was a nice touch for them too. One of the museum workers told me he would never have brought his daughter prior to the refurbishment but that now, they had put lots of thought into little ones and their visits so he absolutely would!

It was not apparent to me that you are expected to ask questions to the staff. A few of them were very friendly and came and offered information but I didn’t realise you are supposed to be asking questions for knowledge rather than reading as in a traditional museum. There isn’t a lot written down and what is, is actually difficult to read being in a handwriting style, pale in colour and on glass. In one way, when visiting with children this is a great way of doing things as you don’t have to stop and focus but can have a quick chat with questions answered. On the other hand I would have liked it if I had been advised this was the case as I just didn’t know until fairly close to the end when I asked about why not a lot was written down.

I asked how long you are expected to visit for and was told that some people whip round in an hour or so while others take their time and around the two-hour mark is expected. The price of admission is a little steep for such a quick visit but it is very interesting and there are lots of little things to see and notice. For us, with children, I wouldn’t say it was exceptional value for money. We couldn’t have spent longer than an hour really as the children would have been bored and it was such a bitterly cold day that having already spent an hour in the park we felt too cold to explore the sunken garden which from the window looked beautiful!

I enjoyed our visit but think unless it was quite a lot cheaper it’s one to do without little ones. There are things for them to do here and there, Florence enjoyed opening drawers and sitting on the window sills listening the walls whisper (if you sit quietly the walls will give you a bit of information, I really liked that!) but not enough to warrant the admission price I think. Perhaps they could offer a time for parents with children under five to enter for a nominal amount of money? Norwich Castle Museum does this and at lunch time between 12 and 1 you can go into the museum for just £1. If Kensington Palace could offer something similar then we could go back a few times and really explore, just over time…

We had a lovely cup of tea in the coffee shop but boy is it pricey! Just a word of warning! They did however not mind at all that we gave the children their packed lunch in there. I asked at the desk and was told to go ahead. On a lovely summers day you could of course picnic in the gardens…

An enjoyable day with lots of interesting things to see. The newly refurbished Kensington Palace is certainly worth a visit!