London Parks & Gardens
Raring to go we headed off to our first park of the holiday. Richmond Park is in the borough of Richmond Upon Thames and was created by Charles l in the 17th century as a deer park. It is also the largest of all the London Royal parks. We discovered it is of national and international importance for wildlife and conservation being as it is a natural nature reserve. 
We walked through the Isabella plantation, a 40-acre woodland garden which was full to burst with brightly coloured and fragrant flowers. There was a huge lake that we walked around, and we became nature spotters finding ducks, Egyptian geese with their goslings swimming around. The views all around were simply breathtaking.
Another day and another beautiful garden. Kew Gardens is a botanic garden and its living collection includes some 27,000-taxi curated by Royal Botanic Gardens while the terrarium is one of the largest in the world and has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungi specimens. We walked through the Palm House which felt like we were in a rainforest with all the tropical plants on show.
This was followed by the Temperate House then the Water Lily House which looked so pretty with the water sparkling underneath the pads. The Princess of Wales Conservatory was our favourite as we wandered around the glass labyrinth through a series of fascinating ecosystems. We were all totally amazed by what we had seen. Lunch was enjoyed at the Botanical brasserie before we caught the train for a 40-minute tour around the grounds. The guide was very informative, and we found listening to him really interesting. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We continued to wander around the lush grounds and we soon found ourselves at the Paragoda, a magnificent piece of architecture. It was made up of 10 levels with beautiful gold statues around the edges; a true site to behold.
After a wonderful breakfast we headed out in the sunshine to London Zoo. This world-famous zoo is in Regents Park, which is the oldest park in London, and was opened in 1828 originally opened for scientific study.
Once deciding where we were heading to first, we spent our time admiring the beautiful animals in their well-kept enclosures. An amazing lunch was enjoyed as we sat overlooking the Lion enclosure who were very vocal indeed, roaring away! This made us laugh. Our favourite animal of the day was the giraffes. They were a little shy to start but soon came out to see us when they thought we had some food! Next, we came across the monkey enclosure and were able to get up close, with them even jumping above us!
We stopped for an ice cream just before closing time and headed to the souvenir shop to purchase a few gifts to remind us of our visit.
The sun was shining as we made our way to Kensington Palace Gardens for another glorious day. We were in awe of the immaculately kept gardens with the main attraction being the Princess Diana memorial fountain. We took lots of pictures and sat for a while reflecting in this peaceful setting. A refreshing drink was had sitting next to The Serpentine and a few of us took our shoes and socks off for a little paddle! It was also lovely to watch the little blue rowing boats go by. After that we walked along the river to Hyde Park, passing the Wellington Bridge. To our amazement we were stopped by the police from crossing the road as Princess Anne passed us by.
Like proper tourists headed into the heart of the city to see all the memorabilia and decorations that had been put up ready for the King’s Coronation. The Mall looked spectacular with all 33 flags of the Commonwealth lining the streets leading our eye all the way up to Buckingham Palace. Next, we saw Leicester Square, Westminster and all drove all along the Thames. We showed the gang the infamous Ritz and Harrods, too.
