Anyone can take a photo of the front door, I think I have done one better, and taken a picture of the back door, hidden behind an ice cream vendor.
Excellent security measures in place!
But after visiting the palace for as long as the children could retain interest, which was beginning to wane after an hour or so, we came out to go to the Orangery and see if we could treat them to afternoon tea.
The Orangery is at the end of this walkway. More on this experience below.
Moving on...
It was a few minutes looking at round trees and squirrels which seemed to be in abundance. Maybe the squirrels were being spoiled by eating leftovers from the Orangery.
But the gardens beckoned.
Lots of green and color. This was in winter so the sun was a bonus.
We were expecting snow, but no such luck!
Not even the pond was frozen over.
Such was the good weather in the middle of winter, a great many people turned out to bask in what little sun there was.
Don't worry, the next day it started raining again, and didn't end till we left.
But, there's only so much sun one can handle in London, and we were getting hungry. Whilst not expecting it would be available, or the girls would actually like cucumber sandwiches, we were hoping for them to, at the very least, have a new culinary experience.
As for us, we have a quest of sorts, depending on which country we're in, and in London, it is a quest to find new places to have high tea as we had exhausted the favorites like Selfridges, Harrods, and Fortnum and Mason.
We had our fingers crossed.
There are a number of stops on the tour bus, you know the one, or two, with the word Highlights in its name. It's easier to get on one of these than try to navigate your own way around, and it took us to Kensington Palace.
The weather had improved, we were hoping it would be one of those days with a surprise or two left in it.
We saw this white building tucked away near Kensington Palace and after doing the regulation tour we were up for a cup of tea and a cake.
Instead, we found they had High Tea and that was it.
The English seem to have a knack for pulling off some of the best sandwiches, particularly those of the cucumber variety, and definitely my absolute favorite.
Here we had the Queen's tea.
In fact, at each of the establishments mentioned above, we had their signature tea, served in fine bone china cups.
Ah, what it must have been like in the olden days of the British Empire!
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