So, our day continued. After a trip to Temple Church, we made our way towards Buckingham Palace. After we got off the tube to make our way there, I thought I was being clever reading this map for directions. I looked at it to figure out a way to get there and stupidly thought it meant walking across the river. Yup, that’s what I thought all the blue was! Couldn’t be more of an idiot at that point if I tried.

Once we recovered from doubling up in hysterics, we continued towards the palace. Such a grand palace, one again I’ve not been inside. Originally completed in 1850, the official home of the Royal Family was where Queen Victoria became the first monarch to reside there. From Buckingham palace we walked up the mall, just as it began to rain. Our aim was to get to Trafalgar Square. Passing The Duke of York column and Admiralty Arch, we eventually reached Trafalgar Square. The towering 52m high Nelson’s column stands at the forefront of the square. Behind is the National Gallery. As the heavens had begun to open, we made a dash for the National Gallery. The floor as we walked in was a beautiful mosaic. Founded in 1824, there are over 2300 collections of art within this museum. I can safely say, it was also incredibly easy to get lost! Paintings dating back to the 1500s from artists such as Holbein, Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo, I mean I haven’t heard of these but as we got further into the museum, I started to recognise more. The paintings were just stunning. They were so old and colourful and bright. There were even people there sketching the paintings and they were insanely talented! then we came across the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Raphael…Leonardo da Vinci…Michelangelo…

Who’d have thought the turtles were such good artists! This Gallery, I did prefer to the Tate Modern. I much preferred the older paintings. It was a bit like when I visit a graveyard I try to find like the oldest grave/crypt. Here I was trying to find the oldest painting. There were so many!RembrandtThen there were the usual famous artists who have their iconic painting that everyone knows. Claude Monet’s waterlily pondVincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers And a crazy self portrait by Pablo Picasso. I can safely say this museum, free again, was well worth the visit. I was growing more and more intrigued by these artist the more I saw their work. On our way out we passed a workshop and headed back out into the rain. With Charing Cross being the closest tube station, we descended underground to catch the tube to the V & A museum. The underground itself was quite funky. Clearly everyone else had the same idea as us. I mean. We located the museum and the had instilled the “one in one out” rule. Still, that didn’t deter our fun. We managed to get in about twenty minutes after joining the queue and proceeded to navigate our way round the museum. I say navigate. I mean get lost. I thought the National Gallery was hard to get round but crikey, the V&A museum had two buildings and we continued ending up in the same place no matter how many flights of steps we walked up and down etc.There were such old artefacts stored here dating back hundreds of years. The best part about the museum? Some of the ceilings! It has been ages since I have seen a beautifully painted ceiling.They were beautiful. We really did end up finding ourselves back in the same place many times. We went out into the courtyard and into the other side of the building around a water feature. It was starting to get dark so looked pretty as the lights were coming on. There were sculptures made from cutlery and a goblet that was big enough to fill with copious amounts of wine! My perfect sized cup haha!There we’re stained glass windows dating back to the 18th century showing the progression in the designs. My favourite part? The library. It was full of beautiful old books. You had to sign in at the desk so I left my bag outside with Matt and went in to admire all of the books. I so want a library in my house!There were sections designated to countries all around the world. Iran was represented above and there is a massive carpet that only gets lit up every half an hour to keep it preserved. The ardabil carpet is the worlds oldest dated carpet. It dates back to somewhen around AD 1539-1540.Then we came to the sculptures where we pretended to be intelligent folk reading up on what they all were. They seemed a bit random and they were also updating another room it looked like. After finding ourselves back in the cafe for about the fiftieth time, we found some more murals. The museum has so many parts. Next up was ancient jewellery. It was full of glass and shit objects. Magpies would love it! Some of the jewellery was beautiful, some of it was simply ghastly! We moved through the exhibit and came across some massive rugs dating back to Henry VIII reign. The last exhibition we came to was about the media. They had costumes from west end plays, photography, portraits and even tiny sets. It was fascinating to see the small sets and how that then transforms to a big stage. The costumes were so intricate. Above is the set model for swan lake. We double checked that we had visited all the exhibitions and once satisfied we had, it was our cue to exit. The museum was beautiful at night. We walked back to the tube and got it all the way back to Richmond. Once we disembarked, a trip to Costa to get a coffee was needed. It had been an awesome day with one of my best friends. Here’s to planning part 2…

Until next time…