London Kensington Palace

After the Albert Memorial we went into the garden of the Kensington Palace. 

The garden was the part of Hyde Park formerly. We sat down to rest a little and we looked at the squirrels. (There are fewer squirrels than in Hyde Park) After that we went further. We caught sight of the palace far away.

The Kensington Palace was the residence of the royal family for a long time.

 When William III. (1689-1702) and his wife Mária II.sat on the throne, the royal residence was in the Whitehall, but the royal couple didn't like to live there, so they bought an old Jacobean country house in 1689. 

The house was built in 1605 and the owner was the Earl of Nottingham. In this time Kensington was a little village on the border of London. William had the house extended and had new parts built.

After the royal couple died, the new Queen, Ann of Stuart used the palace as a house for rest and he looked after the gardens only.

The following king was George I. in 1714. During his reign the palace rebuilt significantly. 

The next king, George II. made the palace one of the official residences.

 He spend 6 months a year here. After his wife Caroline died, half of the palace was closed by the King. When George II. died in 1760, the whole palace closed. The palace never became an official residence of Kings or Queens again.

George III. (1760-1820) didn't already live in the palace. 

There lived his 4th child, Edward, Prince of Kent. The prince's first child was Victoria, who was born here in 1819 and she grew up in Kensington. She met her husband prince Albert here, too. After her father's early death, Victoria lived here with his mother till 1837. 

At this time she moved to the Buckingham Palace as a Queen. Victoria made an official decree in 1898: "Until I'm alive, my birth place isn't allowed to be demolished."

After that the Kensington Palace was used as storage room and for this reason the condition of building became worse and worse.

In the Second World War the palace suffered a serious bomb attack. The complete renovation finished in 2012.

 Since that time the palace has been open to the public.

The most famous resident of the recent past was Diana, Princess of Wales, who was transported from here to the Westminster Abbey on her last way .

Today some members of the royal family live there. In the Diana Wing lives Duke William, with his family.

These days you can visit: the royal staircase, the royal apartments and the dresses of Princess Diana.

Late afternoon we started walking back home through the palace's gardens. We got tired , but we had a very nice and interesting day.

London Kensington

It was a beautiful and sunny day like in spring. We went for a walk to Kensington. The district is full of surprises and nice places. This area is big enough, so we spent the whole day there. There are many museums, but you need to look at them the whole day, one by one. So I have to go again next time.

Kensington can be found in west London and it's an extremely rich area. There are also very expensive streets, with exclusive pubs, shops, restaurants, hotels, etc.

 However, Kensington has the most population density in London. The houses are generally 4-5 storey terraced houses in Victorian style. Nevertheless, you can see beautiful green fields.

We found the footprint of Béla Bartok and Dénes Gábor.

Béla Bartók went to Great Britain 14 times, between 1922 and 1937.

 He also lived in Kensington. There is a memorial plaque on his former residence in Sydney Place.

Dénes Gabor was the inventor of holography. 

His residence is not far from the Natural History Museum.

First we walked from the Victoria Station to the Pont Street. 

From here we went further to the museum quarter, Imperial College, Royal Albert Hall, Kensington High Street, Albert Memorial, Kensington Park, Kensington palace, Round pond and we came back through the Hyde Park to the train station.

The Victoria és Albert Museum is the world's largest museum of applied arts. 

There are almost 5 million exhibits. The museum was founded in 1852 by Queen Victoria, and it was named after Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. The building is gigantic, you can walk about 13 kms in it.

You can see the original sketches of Raffaello that he made for the Sixtine chapel in Rome.

The giant collection of Natural History Museum includes the complete flora and fauna of our planet. 

In addition we can admire minerals, precious stones,the functioning of our planet and the human body. The visitors are shocked upon entrancely the cathedral-like hall and a 130 million year old, giant dinosaur skeleton.

The Science Museum presents the history of technology from the locomotive (steam-engine ) to the 21st century. 

The museum has 7 floors and 10 thousand exhibits.

The Imperial College has 15.000 students, there are more than 50 %. from abroad, from all over the world. The College has 20 student hostels, a private radio station, TV channel, newspaper and rowing club.

You can see the Imperial College Business School in the picture. The modern building was built in 2004, next to the Science Museum.

Several known scientists studied here, for example the Nobel Prize winners Fleming, the inventor of penicillin and Dénes Gábor who invented the holography. Moreover, the writer H.G.Wells, Brian May physicist, later guitarist of the group Queen, the former Prime Minister of India, New Zealand, and Singapore.

London's famous concert hall is The Royal Albert Hall.

The Hall can accommodate 8.000 people and it was built in 1870. Queen Victoria opened it in 1871. The finances for the building weren't enough, so 1300 seats were sold to the music-lovers. The descendants of the former owners are also sticking to their seats. The dome of the hall is 41 ms high and under it one of the world's largest organ can be seen with 10 thousand pipes, its weight is 150 tons.

Next to the concert hall there is the Royal College of Art.

After the Royal Albert Hall we reached the edge of Kensington Park. On the southern part of the Park stands the Princ Albert Memorial. 

The memorial was erected by Queen Victoria, to the memory of her husband Albert, who died in 1861 in typhoid fever.

The Memorial was designed by George Gilbert Scott. Prince Albert stands in the centre of the monument with a catalogue in his hands. Its allusion is that Prince Albert was an organizer of the international exhibition in London in 1851.

The symbols of Europe, Africa, Asia and America stand on the four corners of the monument. The symbols of commerce, agriculture, industry and engineering work

are above the statues of continents.