Diana: Glimpses of a Modern Princess:
This was a wonderful exhibit on Diana. It was small and
fairly new, but great all the same. The entryway had this fabulous wallpaper
with artsy drawings of Diana. Some were iconic photos, while others were just
beautiful. I may have taken a ton of pictures of this, but who cares? If I
could make this the wallpaper in my room, I so would. Inside were several of
Diana’s dresses. So pretty! I loved seeing them, simply because I love Diana.
The wallpaper.
Diana's Dresses!
My wedding dress will look like this. Only in white.
King’s State Apartment:
Here we saw rooms occupied by past kings. They were quite
spectacular. My favorite may have been the room where dancing took place. It
was very colorful and happy, and I could imagine balls taking place there. In
this exhibit, there was an interactive game for us to play. In every room we
were to collect playing cards that had a different member of court on them.
They also contained a letter of the alphabet. Before entering the King’s
private room, we were told to pick three cards with letters that resulted in
spelling a word. We took these three cards and the word they spelled and went
into the room. There, we found cabinets with drawers in them. Each drawer had a
different word on it. In order to find out what position we held in court, we
found our corresponding drawer and opened it. Turns out, I was the royal
physician. Emily and Lindsay were the King’s mistresses. (Floozies.) In some of
the drawers, it said things such as “shunned” or “banished.” Thankfully, we
were in the King’s good graces. That was a great way to work our way through
the exhibit. Once again the rooms were beautiful with wonderful ceilings and
tapestries.
The King's Staircase
Jubilee: A View from the Crowd:
Queen Elizabeth recently celebrated her diamond jubilee.
Queen Victoria is the only other monarch to also celebrate this landmark event.
She reigned for 64 events. This exhibition showed her diamond jubilee celebration.
We saw decorations and souvenirs from the event. (I especially loved the plates
and china. Is it weird to have a plate collection?) They also had a model of London
from that era with scale buildings and a map of London on the floor. That was
super cool. We also could write a postcard to Queen Victoria and “mail” it. So
of course we did. You could also read some that people had written. On the part
where you put why you were in London, someone had written, “I had wanted to go
on this trip for 50 years.” How precious is that?! We also saw video footage of
Queen Victoria riding in her carriage.
Model of London
Queen’s State Apartments:
Then we saw the Queen’s apartments. Apparenlty there’s a storyline
that was to be followed but it wasn’t explicitly set out, so we didn’t get it.
I’ll just google the story later. But her rooms were quite lovely.
Victoria Revealed:
So I will admit. I was excited to go to Kensington mainly
because I like Queen Victoria, because we share a name. Duh. So I was really
excited for this exhibit. The whole exhibit is expressed through Queen Victoria’s
own words found in a journal of hers. That was so cool. Every room had her own
personal thoughts of that exact room, or that exact dress she was wearing. The best
part was the love story between her and Prince Albert. We got to read her words
about her affection for him and see the gifts they exchanged before their
wedding day. It was precious. Absolutely precious. Sadly, when Prince Albert
died unexpectedly, Queen Victoria was heartbroken and wore black for the
remainder of her life, which was over 30 years. Isn’t that extremely sad? A few
highlights were her wedding dress and we saw a staircase leading to the room
where Victoria was told that her uncle was dead and that she, as a teenager,
was now queen. In the exact building I was in, such monumental news was
received.
One of Queen Victoria's black dresses.
That’s the exhibits. So wonderful. This has been one of the
best things I have seen so far and would definitely come back here. We wandered
around the palace gardens, which were spectacular. The gardens turned into
Kensington Park so we wandered around. The weather was so wonderful and sunny
that it was blissful. It was all so calm. We want to go back before we leave
and have a picnic there. We were also in search of the Peter Pan statue that
was featured in the Mary Kate and Ashley movie, Winning London. It was great.
Gotta love Peter Pan.
The gardens.
Kensington Park
Peter Pan statue
We were quite famished after such an adventure so we made
our way to High Street Kensington and went to a restaurant called Giraffe. It
was absolutely delicious. I had the BBQ chicken quesadilla. Wonderful. I need
to go back there before I leave. We then walked in some shops to see if we
could find anything. High Street Kensington has all the same great shops as
Oxford Street but is so much less insane. There are less people, which I quite
enjoyed. It’s a great area of London. I love it. Today was so wonderful, and I
can’t wait for the third addition to the palace trilogy. I suppose I will
upload pictures to Facebook now! Cheerio!
Week Four: Day Six: BLC 17
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