England - Hampton Court

One day we travelled to Hampton Court by train. 

I was there a few years ago, but I had only one hour. It wasn't enough to look at this gigantic building and area.

 We were there befor Christmas, so there was a skating rink in the park to entertain the visitors and children.

Hampton Court can be found in southwest London, at the Thames bank.

Thomas Wolsey, the archbishop of York (later bishop) 

hired this area from the Maltese Knights for 99 years and he had a wonderful Bishop Palace built. At this time he still was Henry VIII'friend. He had separate aparments built for the visits of Henry and his royal household. Later the relationship worsened between Wolsey and the King bevause of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon 

and Henry VIII. Henry asked for the Palace as present for himself. Wolsey was forced to give it to him. But it wasn't enough either, because he became disgraced.

The building became one of the most luxurious royal palaces in Europe in 1540. There are tennis and bowling courts, a gigantic dining room, 

the kitchen had more than 3000 square metres, a vast number of rooms for the visitors and a chapel. The Palace had water pipes.

Henry's only one son Prince Edward 

was christened in Hampton Court. Mary (later Bloody Mary)

 spent the honeymoon here and Elisabeth I.

 held receptions for the foreign delegates.

The function of Palace has changed at the time of (Stuart) Jakab I. 

Jakab used the Palace as the place of his enjoyments. His son, Charles I. had a new tennis court built, he had the water led to the fountains of the Palace from 11 miles and he enlarged the collection of the royal art gallery. During the Civil War, in 1647 the King was jailed in this Palace for three months.

 During the years of the Republic and the Protectorate (1649-1660) they were destroyed the values ( everything what had some value ) in the spirit of Puritanism in utter confusion in England. But Hampon Court escaped from this because Oliver Cromwell the Lord Protector used the Palace himself. He kept the marriage ceremony of his daughter Maria in the royal chapel here.

Charles II. preferred the palace of Windsor, but one of his mistresses, Countess Barbara Villiers, lived here with their illegitimate children. The next golden age was during the reign Wilhelm III. and his wife Maria. The popular architect of this period, Wren was commissioned by the King to rebuild the Palace, as in the case of Kensington Palace. 

He had a conception to destroy the whole Tudor Palace, but fortunately he hasn't enough money and time for them When Queen Mary died, the construction were interrupted. There were continued when the Whitehall Palace burned down during the Great Fire in 1698 in London. At this time the baroque palace was built and the parks and gardens were renovated, too. Queen Anne preferred Windsor and Kensington. After her death, George I. became the King. He came from the royal house of Hanover, from Germany. He didn't speak English and he spent in Hanover much time. But his son, George II. and his wife took a liking this palace. The appartements of King and Queen were full of luxory

 and there was completed the Queen's staircase.

After the death of George II (1760) the palace never became a residence of the royal family. During the reign of III.György the palace was divided into smaller parts. The kind and servile subjects of the king moved to these appartments. In the following two centuries were a lot of various inhabitants in the palace. For example Lady Baden-Powell, the widow of founder of the Scout Movement and the famous physicist Michael Faraday, too. The young Queen Victoria opened the palace for the interested public in 1838.

 But the opening had an unfavourable side. The visitors tore off the wallpapers, many paintings and furniture were missing. But the reconstruction of the whole palace happened in 2 details till 1900 and the building was restored as it has been in the Tudor period. The last decades of the story of the palace were about the restoration again. The major part of the royal apartments was destroyed by fire in 1986. The reconstruction was completed in 1995.

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.