Hampton Court Palace, Gardens, and Maze

Well that was a day that was intense.

Hampton Court Palace is in Zone 6, so if you use the train you have to pay for the zones, buses however are a flat rate of 1.50 pounds per hour, zone irrelevant, using an Oyster card with our all day travel means no real concerns over the number of buses we catch, and we caught a bucket load of buses today, and trains, and buses.

So I had the start of the day planned out but somehow it went astray form the get go.  The initial plan was:

• Buses To Hampton Court Palace.
• Bus to Kew Gardens.
• Bus to Putney Pier.
• Ferry up the Thames.
• Then whatever back home from wherever the ferry dropped us.

LMFAO famous last words.

So the bus ride there was around 1.5 hours, somehow the changeover at Hammersmith with the Google planner was askew, we had to do a change to another bus, with another change to another bus and we eventually arrived at Hampton Court Palace.

Then we did a circuit looking for toilets after that marathon bus journey.

But was it worth it?  Hell yeah, Hampton Court Palace was awesome, no need to put words to it, the pictures speak for themselves.  It sort of rivals Versailles for opulence and excess, but without the sheen of Versailles.

After doing everything and my stomach eating itself from the inside, we had some lunch.  A shared meal of roast chicken, potatoes, and beans.

Then it was off to my childhood dream of the Hampton Court Maze, see the other blog post here.

We made it through leading a charge of lost tourists, it was awesome to finally take a childhood dream and satisfy it, about 45 years in the making was today.

Then it was the Magic Garden, a childhood paradise of play area.  I really wish Jade and Ebony were kids again so we could take them there, it was a kids paradise.

Then the fun began.

We decided to skip Kew Gardens as it had been a long day, Hampton Court Palace was more than we expected.  However my trip planner and lack of WiFi meant trying to do best with what I had.  What a cock up, we also decided to skip the ferry ride due to lack of certainty of our trip options.

We had to back track at Kew to Richmond.  We found a bus to Hammersmith, BUT the Hammersmith bridge is closed to motor traffic, so we had to walk a significant distance to Hammersmith terminal over the bridge.  We knew our bus number but by now we were fed up, had had a "discussion" (if you know what I mean), and decided we would just train it home. Oh and time your trip home outside school finishing times, no matter the country school kids are a PITA.

All up 1.5 hours to Hampton Court Palace, damn 2.5 hours back.  Three buses there, Four buses and two trains back.  But we did go through Earl's Court, so another sort of tick off the list.

Tomorrow promises to be another big day, more tomorrow on that.

2019-09-11 - Hampton Court