Today we visit Kew Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens in south London. But before that, we visit the Newens Original Maids of Honour Bakery right next to the park. Here we buy a small picnic for later. Fun fact: tomorrow it will be exactly nine years since we first bought the Maids of Honour Tarts here, which are a bit comparable to Portuguese Pastéis de Nata. That was after we saw them on a Jamie Oliver programme. In all these years, we’ve come here with three different cars. 😉

In the Botanical Garden it is as beautiful as ever. Chrige takes over the navigation with the park map and leads us criss-cross along the various trees and bushes. In the process, we actually get to places we’ve never been before, for example the Minka House. The 100 year old farmhouse originally stood in Japan. It was then shipped to London and rebuilt here true to the original.

Nearby is the Hive, a modern beehive installation that should be part of any visit to Kew.

We also come across a beautiful bonsai greenhouse, previously unknown to us, where you can see ten different dwarf trees. Fascinating!

But now we can’t wait any longer. We sit down on a park bench with a view of the pond and the Palm House. We have brought sausage rolls, a piece of spinach and salmon quiche, a pasty and, of course, three Maids of Honour Tarts, which we now eat. We weren’t hungry enough for the bakery’s full picnic…. and we were also too late to order in advance via the internet. If anyone ever wants to do that: at least 24 hours in advance.

After all this looking at it, it is high time to take a look inside the large Palm House with the palms and other exotic plants. It is much warmer in here, and in the upper area, which we reach via a beautiful old spiral staircase, it is also very humid. But that’s just the way the plants like it! The oldest potted plant in England is also here (second picture). The palm fern was one of the first plants to be brought to Kew in 1775 – imagine that!

From here we walk to the Treetop Walkway, a footbridge on stilts 18 metres above the ground. This way you are very close to the treetops and at the same time have a great view over the park. You can even see the City of London in the distance.

But now we have to go: Christine is flying back to Switzerland at 6 pm. We treat ourselves to an ice cream from the ice cream van before we drive to Gatwick. Or rather, we are stuck in a traffic jam. We are on the road for almost two hours until we drop her off at the South Terminal.

But Christine is not the only one who has taken her suitcase with her. After all the shortcomings in the more than impractical room, we left early and booked another hotel for our remaining days in London. The Corner Hotel on Adler Street in East London was really completely style over substance. Our room is a complete design fail. The dim ceiling lamp provides hardly any light. Bedside lamps are missing, although there are two labelled switches for them. There is no table lamp either, and no power socket near the table. There’s zero storage for clothes nor in the bathroom. There is no place to put the shower gel and shampoo in the shower! We booked a Premier Inn, which is much cheaper and where we know exactly what we’ll be getting. It’s a bit more out of the way than the Corner Hotel, integrated into the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, but we feel comfortable here.

So from the airport we drive to our new hotel. This means another traffic jam and a drive through the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames. From the hotel we go to get something for dinner – fried chicken for Gabi and a nice sushi plate for me – and then stay up very late, although we’re both tired.

A few more impressions from Kew Gardens: