Thursday, September 17 Kew Gardens

Left the house around 11:00 AM to travel right across the whole city of London to get to Kew Gardens.  Took just over an hour on the District Line.  Mostly sunny warm weather all day, some cloud.

Train station at Kew Gardens

Pub outside of station

Village outside train station

 



 It's a short walk from the train station to Kew Gardens.  We walked past this restaurant, and stopped for lunch.  I had lunch here in 2011 when I went to the Gardens the first time.

 

We had a ploughman's lunch, a typical old fashioned British pub meal.  But it wasn't all that traditional. Salad, apple, olives, relish, celery, cheese.  I ordered brie cheese, which had no taste.  Meg ordered stilton cheese, which also did not taste like it should.   The cheese was cold.  Otherwise, the meal was fine. 

 

Inside the Palm House - tropical

Plants that look like rocks - found in South Africa and Namibia.  They have a fabulous cacti display in a building that has different levels.  Each level is a different temperature to accommodate the types of environment the plants need to survive.

Kew Gardens has quite a large vegetable garden, and the plants are larger than we usually see.  This Swiss chard is actually very tall, with large leaves. 

Meg in the vegetable garden

There are benches scattered all over the park, welcoming tired visitors

There are so many unusual trees throughout the Gardens

There's an elevator, but we walked up the stairs

 When we entered the garden we were approached by a woman looking for foreign visitors who would do a market research survey, for UK10.00.  I consented, since that would help with the entrance fee of UK14.  At 3:30 I was interviewed about London and Kew Gardens - focus on how I researched the trip.  Books?  Online?  Why I was interested in seeing the gardens?  The site is quite far out of the city, so it's an effort to get there.  I mentioned that I thought the gardens were not only interesting and beautiful, but peaceful.  Afterwards, I remembered that the gardens were on the flight paths of airplanes that are descending to land at Heathrow.  One plane every minute or so, and they were low over the gardens.  I noticed the noise - hard not to - but still, I didn't really mind.  The interviewer must have thought I was deaf.  How could I find the gardens peaceful when there was all that noise from the jets flying overhead?

Restaurants:  are several scattered throughout the gardens.  Hot meals at lunch time only, not during the afternoon, when there are only pastries and drinks.  Quite expensive.  Could take a picnic lunch and spend most of the day.

Home at 7:30, after picking up some wine at Lidl's, ordered in Indian food from The Junakee.