July 13 (Monday) – Kew Gardens

Today we hopped on the Tube to head out to Kew Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens.  It was overcast today with a bit of mist later in the day.  However, it wasn’t enough to put a damper on our tour of the gardens.

Turning right as we went into the gardens we found a lovely small lake,

brilliant flower beds,

statuary,

and the first of several conservatory/green houses.  The first one we visited was the Palm House - a two-story glass building with lots of palms and other tropical plants from the Americas and Asia.  There was a walkway around part of the upper story of the greenhouse, putting us right inside the trees.

The nearby Water Lily house featured the giant water lily Victoria Amazonica.  None of these were in bloom but the pond contained a number of other types of water lilies, many of which were in bloom,

The Princess of Wales House specialized primarily in plants from arid climates. 

It also had pond with the giant water lilies.

We took the garden “train” around the grounds to see many of the sights including King William’s Temple...

and a Chinese pagoda.

We stopped to climb up to a raised walkway where you could walk around the treetops of the London Planetrees, which are very common in the area (we were joined by dozens of exuberant elementary students on a field trip).  The views were strictly of the treetops...somewhat monotonous. 

Back on the train we passed Queen Charlotte’s cottage (closed today) and ended at the Orangery and Kew Palace.

Kew Palace

Kew Palace was used as a refuge by King George III and his family when he was suffering from bouts of madness.  It is small as palaces go and had only minimal furnishings. 

We opted for lunch at the Orangery…it has great, tall windows for providing proper lighting for orange trees that are grown in Orangery’s.  There were only a couple of palms in the building, no orange trees.  However, lunch was very good.  

The main flower gardens were a bit of a (a big) disappointment as the major beds along one of the broad walks had all been totally removed for renovation.  Apparently the walks had been resurfaced and the beds were going to be totally redesigned and planted in 2016.  So the giant flower beds were bare soil. 

However, the rest of the gardens were great.  There were a number of very long boulevards throughout the gardens.

One of the boulevards was lined with dozens of hydrangeas in full bloom.  They were absolutely breathtaking.

While sitting on a bench enjoying the gardens we were joined by a peacock.  Very up close and personal.

We walked along the lakes...

and saw a duck family,

coots (look closely, they have very unusual feet),

and a family of swans, Mom, Dad and four cygnets. 

Our walk took us to the back side of the Palm House Conservatory

to the rose gardens.  Many of the roses, while past their prime, were still in bloom.

We ate dinner near the hotel, at Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK), which turned out to have great chocolate shakes.