Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace and the British Museum

Wednesday, June 19

 

Today was our last day in London and we had ambitious plans, but all that was thrown-off a bit by a mystery that occurred with the #9 bus.  We had taken it before to get to Knightsbridge but for some reason that particular #9 terminated at Hyde Park Corner which left us a mile short of the Royal Albert Hall [360°].  We weren't the only passengers that were perplexed and afterwards we saw several other #9s passing us as we walked that remaining mile to the Royal Albert Hall.  We went to Kensington Palace afterwards but that only left us 30 minutes for the British Museum once the #10 bus had navigated the dense traffic on Oxford Street.  Fortunately, we had both previously been to the British Museum but we had also wanted to go to the Tate Modern.  Had we taken the underground rather than either bus it might have made a difference and we really should have gone to the Tate Modern earlier in the week since it was only a ten minute walk from the flat.

 

Anyway, we had 45 minutes before the 1:00 tour of the Royal Albert Hall so we had a nice lunch at the cafe inside it.  Our tour guide sounded like Eric Idle and we were lucky enough to be there while they were rehearsing that night's performance of Swan Lake.  The tour may have only allowed for us to sit and watch the rehersal for ten minutes but it was nice to see something being performed.  Here's a couple of interesting facts:  1) for decades there were serious problems acoustically in the RAH until they finally eliminated the echo in the late 1960s.  2) they had an amazing range of events beyond music and dance including tennis, basketball, sumo wrestling, boxing and even an Olympic marathon in 1908.  3) the financing to build it was partly through the sale of seat licenses of 999 years where the holder has the right to attend all events for no additional charge, although that recently has been cut back to 75% of the events.

Afterwards it was a short walk to Kensington Palace which isn't that impressive on the outside but has many spectacular rooms in it.  There’s lots of history on Victoria and Albert as well as the Stuart and Hanover monarchs beginning around 1680.  More recently a good number of the current royals have lived there including Charles and Diane.

 

We got to the British Museum in time to see only the new roof on the inner courtyard, a few mummies and the Rosetta Stone.  Actually I don't think we'd want to have a whole lot more time as I had probably been there at least three times before.  It's kinda like the Louvre -- at some point you just give up ever trying to see everything.
 

 

We walked to Covent Gardens where we browsed briefly and then went to Sagar again for an Indian meal.  We again caught the RV1 almost right outside the restaurant door and it dropped us off at the bus stop right at the door to our flat.  Our mission to see London had been a success even if we hadn't quite seen everything we had identified.  We'll just save those things we missed for the next time we're in town.