We slept in on our last day in London, being exhausted from our Paris day trip. When we finally got up, we had tea and muffins in our room again. I uploaded Paris pictures and set about planning our day. I still had a pretty long list of activities on my checklist before we went home. I had hoped to catch the inspection or changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace that happens every day at 11:00 am, but it was already getting a bit too late for that. Rick Steves let me down again when I attempted to locate a good place for high tea in my guidebooks. Instead, I went online and put together a list of places offering tea service in our price range and located conveniently near one of our tube stops. The best fit turned out to be tea at the Kensington Palace Orangery, something I vaguely remembered from my first trip to London. We decided to try hit the Orangery around 4:00 for tea.
Other items on my list included seeing Westminster Abby's crypts, tour the Apsley House, visiting the Tate British Art Museum and the Tate Modern Art Museum, locating Speakers' Corner and the Marble Arch near Hyde Park, finding a wine bar near the Waterloo Bridge, and riding the London Eye at night. We also had two more meals to consume in London, and I wanted them to be remarkable so I listed out some options from the guidebooks and the internet to check out as we walked around. It was already nearing lunch time, so I scribbled down a couple options in my journal that were on the way into town.
We got off the tube at South Kensington station and wandered down Thurloe St. to find Cafe Daquise, which Rick Steves had described as a casual Polish eatery where you could get a kielbasa for lunch. When we found the address we were surprised to see a fancier Polish restaurant in its place, Gessler at Daquise. We gave it a try and had a unique fine dining experience. The chefs brought the food out in their pots and pans to deliver, arrange, and garnish directly on our plates. We felt very special and we were glad we had put on nicer clothes for our last day.
I ordered a Zywiec Polish beer for us to share and we each had the barley soup as a starter. Kat had the stuffed cabbage rolls with dumplings and I had pierogis filled with fresh strawberries and covered in cream sauce. Everything was delicious, and I helped Kat eat her cabbage rolls.
After lunch we got back on the tube and took it to Victoria station. We wandered past Buckingham palace, where there was still a crowd of tourists despite it being 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We saw some fearlessly foolish guy climbing all over the Queen Victoria Monument in the middle of the roundabout in order to pose for a picture. After taking some pictures of our own, we left the crowds behind and wandered through Green Park toward Apsley House and Hyde Park. We decided against paying to go in Apsley House and continued on our way toward Speakers' Corner and the Marble Arch. Kat said she wasn't that interested in either of the Tate museums so I crossed those off the list.
Kat had gotten an email overnight about a potential job opportunity starting very soon after we would be getting home. Her mind was preoccupied with financial issues and the stresses of applying for the job sooner than later. She was anxious to get back to the apartment and spend some time updating her resume and writing a cover letter. I figured we should cut our walk short and head back to the apartment soon. It was getting close to tea time, and the Orangery was sort of on the way back there so we agreed to do that before returning home.
First we stopped by Speakers' Corner and the Marble Arch. There wasn't anything of note going on at the moment. I had read that things really get interesting on Sunday here, but there was nothing worth seeing today. We took the tube from the Marble Arch to Queensway station. Queensway is probably the worst station we visited. It was very deep underground and the trains were only accessible via large elevators or a set of spiral stairs 121 steps long. One of the elevators was broken, so we stood in a long queue just waiting to get out of the station and then packed into the lift car when it arrived. Definitely try to avoid Queensway when you visit London.
Once we left the station we wandered down Bayswater Road toward Notting Hill and Kensington Palace and the Orangery. We took some pictures in the gardens, which were beautiful, and of some of the local fauna. Kat liked the strange looking birds and the squirrels and pigeons who seemed very tame from being fed bread scraps by visitors.
Our high tea at the Orangery was very decadent. We ordered the Enchanted Palace menu, which included finger sandwiches, a scone, sweets and tea for each of us. Kat was really excited about the finger sandwiches: the cucumber one in particular. She gave me her salmon sandwich. The scones were delicious and had a hint of orange in them, with no chunks of fruit (for which Kat was grateful). The sweets included a shortbread cookie stuffed with cream and raspberries as well as a miniature chocolate cake with a woman's face imprinted on the icing. They were both tasty and I enjoyed eating the woman's face. We were very pleased with our high tea experience and the day was a nice one to be outside.
After tea, we took the tube home from High Street Kensington station. Once we were back at the apartment I sat down to take notes in my journal, eat some candy, and drink my last beer while Kat got on the computer and applied for a job. That took her awhile, but when she was done she was much more relaxed and ready to enjoy the rest of our time in London. I tried to book tickets online for us to ride the London Eye after sundown, but I was unsuccessful. Apparently you need to make reservations a good deal ahead of time for that. Something to keep in mind if you ever want to try it. I crossed that off my list as well as the wine bar at Waterloo bridge since I wasn't able to find anything like that on Google maps. I didn't want to spend our last night searching for something that might not exist anymore. We had missed our opportunity to see Westminster crypts, so the only thing left to do was find a place to eat dinner.
Rick Steves recommended dinner at Maggie Jones for a unique experience. I called ahead and put in reservations for the two of us at 9:00. We took the Piccadilly line to High Street Kensington and found our way there. The nearby St. Mary Abbots church was ringing its bells maniacally as we passed by. We were fascinated by Maggie Jones when we went inside. It felt like a living piece of history. Our table was up in a cramped attic space. The narrow wooden stairway had a thick rope for a railing. The tables and chairs were all mismatched wooden antiques and the space was lit by candle light and low trimmed lanterns. It was enchanting. The attic was warm that evening, but we didn't mind. The menu had many items we had never seen before, including pigeon, and we had to get recommendations from the waiters. One of our waiters was a very soft-spoken, odd, but charming young man who gave us his honest opinions on the dishes. Kat ordered the rabbit stew and I had a roasted half chicken with stuffing. We ordered peas with bacon and sautéed potatoes as sides. We had a magnum of house red wine that we shared and paid for only what we drank. That reminded me of my London trip with my parents where we had found a great Greek restaurant that served wine in the same way. You drink a lot of wine that way. Our meals were delicious and the bill ended up being just enough to use up my remaining pounds. We headed home full and happy. It was a great place to end our trip.
At home we popped open the champagne our flight attendant had given us on our trip over and mixed it with the rest of our “exotic” juice. We drank our pseudo-mimosas while we packed our bags for our flight home the next morning. Kat had to help me finish my champagne. I set the alarm for 6am and went to bed around 1am. Kat wasn't feeling tired yet so she stayed up to look at the pictures I had uploaded and correct my grammar on the blog.
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