London Day 1

August 28:  Sunday was spent visiting Kew Gardens and walking the Thames River Path from Kew to Putney Bridge.  We covered over 11 miles in all.  After breakfast at the hotel, we caught the Underground from King's Cross Station, changed at South Kensington and continued to Kew Bridge.  We walked through an attractive suburb, following lots of other people to the Victoria Gate to Kew Gardens.  We queued up, bought tickets, and entered the gardens.

The Palm House at Kew Gardens

Our first destination was past the Palm House, to a hear a talk on the newly designed and planted Broad Walk.  It rained for about ten minutes before the talk was to begin.  There were to be many more brief downpours over several hours while we were in the garden.  It seemed that once we had the umbrella out, the rain quit.  But it didn't stop the next shower from rolling in.  We used our umbrellas, stood under large trees with others without umbrellas, and once escaped indoors to a greenhouse.

Anyway, back to the talk; it was given by 2 of the gardeners who helped create the plantings that border the newly redesigned Broad Walk, a formal path that runs between the Orangery and the Palm House.  The foot path itself is  composed of porous stone and resin beads, that allows rain water to pass through, a useful idea.  On each side of the path, there are semicircular-shaped plantings with a mirrored twin opposite.  Each pair is a theme of plant types, such as shade plants, monocotyledons (grasses, etc. that shoot out only a single leaf when they first sprout), daisy family, etc.  The first in the sequence is the hardy, traditional, flowering plants that provide good color for long periods.  The gardeners told us about the design process and execution of the plan, described each 'pod' of plantings, and explained what they are now doing to maintain the plan.  The border was planted beginning last October and replaced what had to have been less interesting hedges.

The largest of the border plantings with hardy plants

We next walked around  the Bee Hive (part of a park educational scheme about bees), seeing some of the huge, old trees in the garden, going to a bed of different ornamental grasses, visiting the Princess of Wales Conservatory,  which includes collections of cacti, tropical plants, orchids, and arctic plants.  We dodged a few rain showers during this period.

The Bee Hive

Lotus flowers and seed pod

We walked back by the Palm House, the most recognizable feature of the garden, and onto the Treetop Walkway.  It is a circular walkway among some trees, notably chestnuts, about 100 feet in the air.  With others on it, the walkway has a nice sway to it, sort of like being on a moving train or ship.  After this stop, we walked toward the Thames River and curved around to exit at the Elizabeth Gate.

We stopped for a break at The Cricketeers Pub, which was across the street from a cricket pitch and an ongoing match.  We enjoyed a beer/cider and prepared to tackle another segment of the Thames River Path.

The Cricketeer deck

We walked on the south side of the Thames from Kew to Putney Bridge following our written guide.  This route was 5 1/2 miles; the north side was a mile longer because of inland detours.  We passed a number of rowing boathouses, an old brewery, now owned by Budweizer, some nature parks, the Hammersmith Bridge, and some of the usual wildlife.

Hammersmith Bridge, designed by Bazalgette
(engineer of the London sewer system)

Just before crossing the Putney Bridge, we stopped for Sunday dinner at the Dukes Head, a headquarters hotel for crewing events such as the annual Oxford-Cambridge race that runs in this stretch of the river.   I tried a chicken roast with vegetables and Yorkshire pudding;  Betsy had a vegetarian tart with distinctive Ogleshield cheese. We caught the tube back to our hotel.