London With Kids: The British Museum

Our fourth and last day in London. The previous 3 days had gone well (read more here, here, and here) and we were excited to stop by the British Museum on our way out.

British Museum
We checked out of our hotel and then took our luggage to the train station where they stored it for us. This was really great and didn't take up too much extra time during our morning.

The British Museum was founded in 1753 and was the first national public museum in the world. 

Sir Hans Sloane was a famous collector back then and left his collection to King George II after he died in exchange for £20,000 to his heirs. Later that year, the British Museum was established. By 1759, it was open to the public and those who were "studious and curious" could enter for free. 

The best photo I could get of the Rosetta Stone

We didn't have much time (we were planning on leaving by around 1ish), but we knew we wanted to see Ancient Greece and Egypt. Anything more than that would be awesome, but as long as we got to see those couple of exhibits, we were okay.

Assyrian statues 

We found Ancient Greece pretty quickly. It was amazing. The different sculptures were all made of marble and showed bits and pieces of everyday life back then. We even saw sculptures and pillars that were once part of the Parthenon, which was a temple in Athens dedicated to Athena.

There was also a ton of Greek pottery! It was all so pretty and cool and we really enjoyed looking at them. Each vase told a story using pictures.

Next, we checked out a few of the Egyptian rooms. It was my first time ever seeing a mummy! It's so crazy to think about how advanced the Egyptians were for their day. They had their own alphabet and even had a fully developed numeral system.

Adeline loved looking at everything. Here she is checking out some Egyptian pottery.

We grabbed a quick lunch at the museum and then headed back to the train station to catch our train home to Paris.

We only saw a very small part of the museum, but it was definitely still worth it! The museum is free and even if you can only spend an hour there, I highly recommend doing so. Both the girls did great. London walked most of the time and Adeline was in the stroller about half of the time. She actually took some of her first steps in one of the Egyptian rooms!

The train ride home went pretty well. This time we only had two seats for the 4 of us, but everyone did surprisingly well.

Overall, our trip to London was fantastic! We really enjoyed seeing everything that we could in our short amount of time. It was extremely family-friendly, probably the best we've visited so far with all the parks and museums (and good stroller access just about everywhere). We hope to go again soon!

For more information:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/visiting.aspx

London with Kids: Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral

 So far our trip to London had been amazing (read about our previous days here and here) and we were excited for everything we still had planned.

Our plan for the day was to go to the Tower of London and then see head over to the British Museum. Obviously the day didn't go as planned as you can see from the title, but it still ended up being a pretty good day.

Tower Bridge
We started our day by walking over to the Tower Bridge. It was a nice walk, especially once we reached the river. We walked under the London Bridge on our way and that was kind of interesting (it played the song London Bridge is Falling Down as you walked under it).

The Tower Bridge was built in the late 1800's and is now an iconic symbol of London. We had to carry the stroller up a little bit of stairs to be able to cross it, but it wasn't too bad. It was pretty awesome to walk across. There's also an exhibition that you can visit in the towers, but we passed this trip.

Tower of London

The Tower of London was a short walk from the bridge. We had bought our tickets ahead of time online here. When we got to the castle, we picked up our tickets at the Group Ticket Office. They also gave us a little childrens activity set for London that included a button for her to wear and an activity book. She loved it!

The castle was ordered to be built by William the Conqueror in 1066. Over the next 900+ years much would happen at the Tower of London, including the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I imprisonment (as a Princess), Guy Fawkes' torture after failing to blow up parliament, Colonel Blood's attempt to steal the Crown Jewels, and much more.

Enjoying our tour with the Beefeater and checking out the ravens 

Included with our ticket was a tour with a Yeoman Warder (or "Beefeater"). We had told London about the Beefeaters before coming on our trip and she always asked why they were called that. We told her that we didn't know and that she could ask one when we got there. Well, before our tour, Aaron took London over to one of the Beefeaters and she got to ask why that's their name. He told her it's because they got to eat a lot of meat at the King's table at the end of the day. Wikipedia gives several possible origins, but one mentions being given a large amount of beef, so who knows. ;)

He gave a group tour around the grounds and we saw a few different interesting sites such as the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula and the outside of the Bloody Tower. The tour was about an hour. Afterwards, we headed straight to the Crown Jewels. No photos were allowed, but everything was beautiful!

Outside of the building that holds the Crown Jewels

We ate lunch at the Armouries Restaurant which had a wide variety of food options. Everything tasted good and high chairs were available.

After lunch, we went and saw the ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens ever leave their home at the tower, then the Kingdom will fall. They eat 170g of raw meat a day plus bird biscuits soaked in blood and are cared for by the Raven Master.

 St. Paul's Cathedral 
After the Tower of London, the plan was to head to the British Museum. We got on the underground and we were heading the right way, only to learn that the line that would have taken us there, was closed for Sunday! We were told that the best alternative way to get there was by bus and so we tried to track down the right one, only to eventually give up (we have the worst luck trying to figure out how the local buses work!).

We ended up making our way through the Financial District and over to St. Paul's Cathedral. We didn't go inside, but enjoyed walking around the outside. It was a great place for the kids to get out of the stroller and run around a bit and eat a snack.

Next time, I think we would go inside and head up to the Whispering Gallery. It's said that if you climb the dome, one person can stand on one side and whisper and the the other person can stand elsewhere in the dome and hear the whisper!

Bankside
We decided to head back towards our hotel after St. Paul's. We crossed over the Blackfriars Bridge and could hear music along the river bank. We headed down towards the water and saw several musicians playing and then ran into this guy making giant bubbles.

It was so cool! London had a blast playing in the bubbles.

We walked a little further down near Tate Modern and found a guy selling some street art. Below, you can see the painting that we bought from Robbie MacGregor.

A photo posted by Ashley Daley Photography (@ashleydaleyphotography) on Apr 4, 2016 at 11:30pm PDT

We grabbed dinner near our hotel at Vapiano. The food was great and it had a good atmosphere.

While our day ended up a little different than we had planned, it still ended up being pretty good. I especially loved how we ended our evening walking along the River Thames.

For more information, check out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge

http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/

London with Kids: Westminster and Kensington

The day before had been great, our first night in the hotel room went very well, and we were ready to see more of the city. Our plan for the day was to visit sites in Westminster and Kensington. 

We took the underground from Southwick (a very quick walk from our hotel) to Westminster.

Westminster

Westminster Palace - Big Ben

The first sight was saw coming out of the station was Westminster Palace. It was magnificent! We walked around the building a bit and took a few photos. London was pretty excited because we had talked beforehand about how this was the same clock that Peter Pan flew to.

Westminster Abbey

The abbey was beautiful to see! We were there on a Saturday and the abbey was open from 9:30 am - 3:30 pm. We purchased our tickets online, although there didn't seem to be too horrible of a line for those that purchased at the door.

There are no photos allowed once you're inside. This was a little bit of a bummer, but at the same time, it was nice to really focus on everything we were seeing. An audio guide was included and we followed the path through the abbey. 

We saw plaques and graves to many historical people, including: Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, countless writers, and more. The abbey's website actually has an entire list that you can browse through before your visit.

We also got to see the graves of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots and learn more about each of their stories. 

At the very end of the tour, we got to see the coronation chair. This was originally made for King Edward I to enclose the Stone of Scone that he had brought over from Scotland. Legend has it that this is the same stone that Jacob from the bible had used first as a pillow and then for a pillar (Genesis 28:18). While it used to be stored in a vault in England, it now resides back in Scotland and is only brought to England for coronations. You can visit it at Edinburg castle. 

Both of our girls did well in the abbey. We were there for two hours and saw a good amount. Luckily, Adeline fell asleep for about half the time so that was nice. The abbey was mostly stroller friendly, with only a few area of stairs. When we came across stairs, Aaron and I just took turns going up really quick and it wasn't a big deal for us.

Buckingham Palace- Changing of the Guards
The changing of the guards happens everyday in the Spring and Summer at 11:30 am sharp. In order to really see whole event, one must get there very early. We got to the street right at 11:30 and it was very crowded. We saw just the end of the guards walking up to the palace.

We overheard a tour guide telling another group of people to stick around because the guards will march back towards this way at the end. He mentioned that it's also usually less crowded by then. So we decided to wait and found a good spot on the sidewalk where we would be able to see them coming down the street.

It was a little bit of a wait, but it was really neat seeing the guards march down the street while playing music (the bagpipes were our favorite).

Kensington

Kensington Gardens

The first time I ever heard of Kensington Gardens was when I read the book Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. I was excited to see the gardens and also to see the Peter Pan statue. 

It was a very nice walk and we saw some beautiful flowers, birds, and of course. the statue. We mostly followed the "Princess Diana Memorial Walk" path and it eventually led us to one of the coolest playgrounds I've ever seen - the Diana Memorial Playground.

This playground has elements of Peter Pan to it with it's pirate ship and teepees and also has a fun musical area and several playgrounds. It was a great place for both our girls to play and had plenty of activities for older children as well.

The playground is gated and only allows a certain number of children to come in at a time. This creates a bit of a line/queue, but for us at least, it was not a long wait at all.

It was a great break in the middle of the day and allowed both our girls to run around a bit before going into the museums in the evening.

Trying on astronaut gloves.

Science Museum
After the kids played for awhile, we headed down to the Science Museum. We didn't have too much time left before it and the Natural History Museum closed at 6pm, so we only saw one exhibit - Exploring Space. Our toddler wants to be an astronaut when she grows up, so she was pretty excited. We got to see a piece of the moon and try on astronaut gloves. There was also a ton of information about astronauts in general and replicas of different spacecrafts.

Natural History Museum
After our quick visit at the Science Museum, we ran over to the Natural History Museum. Luckily both museums are next to each other. We mostly just saw the dinosaur bones here. It was really neat and I wish we would have had more time to walk around.

We had hoped to also visit the Victoria and Albert Museum (their website had mentioned a toy display that looked pretty neat), but we ran out of time.

Our second day was full of activities and went very well. I was very pleased with how kid friendly everything was! The girls were tired, but both had a fun time at each of our destinations. Overall, definitely a success.

For more information, check out:
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/home
https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington-gardens/things-to-see-and-do/sports-and-leisure/diana-memorial-playground
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

London With Kids: Harry Potter, River Tour, and Trafalgar Square

We took our family to London in April and had an amazing time! Our toddler has now repeatedly told us that she wants to live there (although a big part of it might be because of her sharing a name with the city...).

To help get our girls excited about our trip, we purchased the book, A Walk in London, by Salvatore Rubbino. Our London loved it and we read it many times before bedtime prior to our trip. It really is a super cute book though about a mum and her little girl as they tour the city.

Anyway, the city of London was very family friendly. We were there for 4 days and there was more than enough to do as a family and even more things that we wished we could have had time for.

We took the Eurostar train from Paris to London. It took a little over 2 hours to get there and both kids were free (children under 4 are free but have to sit on your lap unless there are extra seats available at the time). We were lucky to be in a pretty empty train car on the way there - We were able to sit at a table for four and have plenty of space for us all. It was fairly comfortable and we had a pretty view outside the window.

We stayed at the Premier Inn in Southwark, London (near Tate Modern and The Globe Theatre). It was very nice and they provided us with a travel crib.

Our first day in London was great! Once we arrived, we visited Platform 9 3/4 (I'm a big Harry Potter fan), took a short River tour up the Thames, and visited Trafalgar Square.

Harry Potter - Platform 9 3/4
Our train took us to the St. Pancras station, which is basically part of the Kings Cross station. We walked through until we found Platform 9 3/4 and also a pretty neat Harry Potter store. London and I waited in line (I've already told her about a few of the books and she was excited to see everything too) while Aaron stayed with the stroller and luggage. Luckily, Adeline was asleep in the stroller at this point so it was all fairly easy. Unfortunately (and maybe because it was a Friday afternoon?), the line was pretty long. We probably waited about 45 minutes, but I still feel like it was totally worth it.

There were workers there who kept everything organized, took photos, and explained how everything worked. Once it's your turn, a worker helps pose you and they use their own photographer to take a photo that you can later view and buy if you want. You can also have someone in your group take a picture at the same time (free of charge).

London is so very shy, but was also really excited to get her picture taken and play with the wand and everything. I talked to the girl who was working at the time and explained all of this and she was so nice about it. She had me work with her to get London in a good position and then I stood just a few steps out of the frame while London did her solo picture. Aaron was able to come up and snap a few of our own photos as well. London loved picking out which scarf to wear and being able to hold a "magic" wand. It was so cute. Then London and I took a few pictures (she was very excited to sit in the actual cart) and then Aaron and I switched spots so he could get a couple too. I'm a little bummed we didn't get any photos with Adeline, but at least she got a good nap out of all of this.

River Tour

From the train station, we took the Underground to our hotel and checked in. Once we had settled in a bit, we walked to the nearby pier (Bankside) to see what we could do as far as a river cruise goes. 

When we went to Rome, we booked our hop on/hop off bus ahead of time and in hindsight, it was the one thing I wish we would have waited until we were in person to do since there were a ton of buses around the city and it took awhile to find the one we had actually booked.

With this in mind, we didn't worry about booking an actual river tour and waited until we walked down to the closest pier to see what our most convenient options were.

This view was just incredible!

We ended up hopping on a boat that's more like public transport (I think you can even use your Oyster card or at least get a discount with it), but it also had a bit of a tour with it. We were able to get an amazing first look at the city as it took us up by the Tower of London and then circled around and went down to Westminster.

Seeing Big Ben from the river for our first look was amazing.

There were a couple of stops where people could hop on and off. One was at the Palace of Westminster and we decided to get off there to see Big Ben and walk down to Trafalgar Square.

The girls were both great on the boat and it was an amazing first look at the city (the kids and I had never been to London before this).

It was a very nice walk from Big Ben to Trafalgar Square and we got to see a few sights along the way.

Downing Street

Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public square in Westminster that commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar.  This battle took place 21 October 1805 off the coast of Spain and was a British victory in the Napoleonic Wars.

Nelson's Column is in the center with four lions around it.

We really only checked out the column, but it was pretty neat. Originally, we all thought the lions would be more at ground level and that you could climb them (probably because of London's book...). In fact, while it seemed okay to stand on the wall next to the lions, people were constantly told to get down if they actually climbed the lions.

We ended our night by getting dinner at Covent Gardens. We were in a bit of a rush so we didn't see much of the street performers (and I didn't take any photos at all), but there were definitely lots of options for food (we got hamburgers). Also, the public bathrooms were great with even a toddler potty and a nice changing table (they do charge 1 euro to use though).

Our first day overall was very nice and we were excited for the rest of our trip!

For more information, check out:
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square
https://www.coventgarden.london/