Continued from London Day 2.

The coffee machine in our hotel room, kinda fancy. Milk in a stick! Something I feel like we’ll never see in America.

It’s sunnier today, for now. We tried our best to get an earlier start, so left our hotel at 10:37am. Not too bad I guess. We wanted to leave a little earlier because the first place that we are headed to today is about an hour train ride away. We also have dinner plans with our old neighbors who had moved to London. Dinner is at 7pm, which means if we started the day too late, we won’t be able to get back to central London in time.

Into the tube we go.

Got on the platform and the train was already waiting for us.

Arrived at Waterloo train station. We need to connect to an above ground train here to head to Hampton Court. We visited the ticket office and the ticket guy was a little rude. He mentioned that due to the recent storm, there’s a bridge that’s been damaged so we won’t be able to reach Hampton Court station, but instead of we should go to Thames Ditton and then take a bus.

What’s Thames Ditton and what bus? Is Thames Ditton another station on the line? Is it another train station altogether? I tried to get clarification, but he was impatient and rude so I just got the minimum info, which was to go to platform 3, use my contactless credit card to go through the gates, and just go from there.

After I had left the ticket booth, I looked on the board and figured out that Thames Ditton is indeed a station on the train line heading towards Hampton Court.

Here’s the train at platform 3 and after looking on my phone for more info, it seems like Thames Ditton is the station right before Hampton Court, and there will be a connecting bus service to take us to the Hampton Court. OK, let’s hope this all works out. If not, there’s always Uber.

Pretty empty train the whole ride out there.

Lots of residential high rises going up in this part of London. I’d hate to live this close to so many rail tracks though.

Soon, it became much more suburbia.

Tennis, anyone?

Thames Ditton (when the Brits pronounce it, it sounds like “Times”), then it’s out of the station to look for the bus. How am I supposed to find this bus?

The logical choice was to follow the majority of the people getting out of the train. Hopefully they are all heading towards the bus. You can actually see the bus hiding behind those trees.

It was also right after we got to Thames Ditton that our neighbors who now live London called RL on her phone. Apparently they had just tested positive for covid this morning. We were very sad to not get to hang out with them. COVID sucks.

Double decker bus.

After a quick ride, we were at Hampton Court Station via bus.

Across the Thames river next to the station is Hampton Court Palace, probably most famous for being Henry the VIII’s residence.

Into the ticket office for some pricey tickets and off we go on the tour.

First inner courtyard

Don’t ask me what these are, we didn’t get the audioguide and there weren’t any signs that we found.

They gave helpful hints in the toilets.

Henry VIII’s kitchen. It’s a giant kitchen (composed of several rooms) meant to feed lots of guests.

Another room of the kitchens…

and another room of the kitchens…500 plus years worth of smoke staining. Also, look how many pig spits they could have going at once!

I thought these were funny and ironic. Humble and Loyal, Divorced.

The Most Happy, Beheaded.

Seated like kings and queens.

Bound to Obey and Serve, Died.

Wonder why someone etched out Died.

God Send Me Well to Keep, Divorced.

I am king and I do what I want, bitches.

No Other Will But His, Beheaded.

Be Useful In All I Do, Survived. This one isn’t funny or ironic.

Halfway through the palace, the style changes from Tudor to Baroque since Henry VIII had died and other kings had taken over by now.

My kids would love this pony figurine. This was an exhibit in the art of napkin folding at that time period.

The garden seen from inside the palace.

Time to take a short stroll in the formal garden.

Us older, after three kids.

Cool floating pots in the fountain.

Reminds RL of the Wishing Tree on a tv show that our kids have watched.

Back in the palace for more interior tours.

A room decorated with guns and swords.

And more guns and more swords.

This is William III’s bed chamber.

The immediate room next to his bed chamber is his little bed chamber.

I am guessing this is where the magic actually happens since it’s a little more private.

That’s it for the interior of Hampton Court Palace. It was interesting but no where near as impressive as Versailles. Honestly, I’d think for all that you hear about Henry VIII, you’d imagine he would have a more impressive palace.

Why is this sign even necessary? Is someone going to read this sign and all of a sudden decide not to be an total asshole?

Rose garden, in this case, twig garden. RL was very sad that nothing is in bloom.

RL hunting for things in bloom.

Let’s go into this maze.

That was a lot of walking around aimlessly…where do we go?

Made it.

Victory!

Alright, done with Hampton Court Palace, time to get in an Uber and head to our next spot.

Uber has been so amazing for traveling between two spots with no easy public transport connection.

Uber is also great for resting our legs from walking.

To be continued at London Day 3 Part 2.