Chapter Text
I landed in London quite early that day, which I was glad for since it meant I'd have more time to sightsee. After getting settled at my hotel and having some breakfast food for lunch (I tried GAIL's; go on, judge me. I had to see if it lived up to the hype and was pleasantly unsurprised to find out it absolutely doesn't, LMAO), I hopped on the Tube and headed for my first scheduled stop: South Kensington, to feast my eyes on some beautiful architecture. And one of the first things I saw and photographed upon exiting the station was the iconic Kensington Hotel!
I really wanted to have a glimpse at it since it features quite prominently in one of my favourite Yuumori fics, the underrated masterpiece that is ShreddedLeopard's C r u s h.
Afterwards I made my way north-west according to my pre-planned route, to photograph Prince Consort Road, the Royal College of Music, Queen's Gate Terrace, Kynance Mews (thankfully in bloom, since it was May! Yay!), and Kensington Court, and eventually swung back around to the front of the Natural History Museum.
I hate that nearly all my photos are quite literally Pisa-levels of tilted, but I was carrying a bunch of luggage every day and it kept weighing down my arms unevenly :( The inside of the Natural History Museum cured quite a bit of my frustration, though :)
The entrance is very impressive, with a dinosaur skeleton display and an enormous escalator that takes you THROUGH a red-lit sphere made up of various geological materials in honour of and reference to our planet, but said escalator ZOOM!ed me up too fast to take a good photo once I was on it, and the ones I took before that were so crowded with tourists, they just looked bad :((
The iconic Hintze Hall, the museum's largest gallery! With Hope the Whale suspended from the ceiling, and the Giant Sequoia, which was approximately 1341 years old when it was felled in 1891!
Would you believe me if I said Charles Darwin's original copies of On the Origin of Species were half the reason I wanted to come here in the first place?
The other half was the tiny Moon rock. Yes, that's an actual rock from the Moon! The only one that Britain has, I think?
I may not have come for the dinos, but they were what made me want to stay past the point where my feet felt like they were about to fall off. This is what my photos of the dino galleries look like when my fellow accursed tourists AREN'T completely crushing me and ruining my view of various majestic things, btw :)
Another blue whale (older than Hope!), this time with a life-sized sculpture for scale. I say "for scale" but no picture can do the actual scale of these things justice, tbh.
Right before dinner I popped over to Covent Garden for some souvenirs my friends had asked of me, and also got to walk past the Royal Courts of Justice on my way to my chosen restaurant, though unfortunately they are too big and beautiful to capture in a single frame.
To cap off the day, I had a Sunday roast for dinner at the iconic Simpson's In the Strand, where Arthur Conan Doyle himself would dine numerous times! He loved the place so much he made Sherlock and Watson visit it several times in both the novels and stories, as I recall — and I can certainly see why! Their Sunday roast is brought to all guests who order it on a silver trolley and the rib of beef is carved above an open flame right in front of you, all while you can chat with the lovely ladies and gentlemen doing the job about the restaurant's history and architecture. Although I am often given strange looks for dining alone on most of my outings, there was so much warmth and professionalism demonstrated by the staff here towards me that I completely forgot to feel awkward, and the meat, mustard and roast veggies were some of the best I've EVER had. Don't be fooled by the size of the portion, it's EXTREMELY filling. It is also pricey, but not unreasonably so for such a high-end establishment. This Victorian jewel of a place was almost shut down because of Covid, and only recently reopened, so I was more than happy to part with my money if it meant I could support it for having made the end of my first day back in England so memorable! <3