London – Day 1 – Victoria & Albert Museum

This morning we got up at an unspeakable hour to catch our flights from Dublin.  Mum was on the very first flight out of the airport in the morning which goes to Frankfurt leaving at 5.20 am.  My flight left at 6.25 for London.

Mum at the Dublin Airport – note the new extra rolling case for all the extra stuff we bought.

I was very sad to see Mum leave.  It has been a fun trip so far with her especially in Hamburg seeing family related locations and the first part in Ireland (being sick hasn’t been so much fun).  Now I am on my own for the first time on this journey.   Though I was solo in Malta in February some how this seems bigger.  I’m definitely much less prepared this time for each location.  Though I have accommodation booked, I haven’t really done any research to know what I want to do with my time.  This is very unusual for me and I’m working to get used to it because I know I can’t memorize the guidebook and map before getting there as I would normally do!

After seeing Mum off on her flight this morning I hung around the airport for a while before hopping my Ryanair flight to London.  I’ve never flown with Ryanair before but I’m going to be using a lot of discount airlines in the coming months so I’m going to have to get used to no leg room or other frills like free checked luggage.  Oh and I can’t buy anything as my bag currently weighs 15.1 kg and the limit for most of these carriers is 15kg.

I’ve spent the day just wandering around Kensington and Knightsbridge which is the area of London, just south of Hyde Park where my hostel is.  On confirming my reservation I noted that the age limit for this place is 35 (and they actually check!) which means I likely won’t be back next year!

Houses in Kensington

The one touristy thing I did was wander around the Victoria and Albert seeing their exhibits of medieval and renaissance decorative arts.  It was fun and I’ve wanted to go there for many years.

Victoria & Albert Museum (free admission!!)

This bed made a king look small and had four mattresses on it!

These should never come back into fashion – I have a hard enough time with door frames!

Of course being in this corner of London no random exploration would be complete without a wander through Harrods.  There were mobs of people (the tour busses parked out front should have tipped me off!) so I didn’t stay too long – maybe an early morning visit would be better.

Harrod’s Knightsbridge