Hitting the last of our bucket list in London!

We had a 'free' weekend in London so we decided to tick off a few more items on the London bucket list.... 

We went to our favorite place for Sunday Roast... Boma Green. We sure are going to miss this place!! I am determined to bring the tradition back with me though... 

We also headed south of the city to explore the Royal Kew Gardens

 

The 2 tallest structures in the park.. the tree top observation walk and the Pagoda

 Despite my deathly fear of heights, Jeffrey was able to capture a smile from me at the top - 

The sun was really nice and the view was lovely, what is there not to smile about?!?! 

(except the rickety tall struggle that swayed in the breeze and every foot step!)

Very peaceful and calming all over the park... especially here by this little lake

HUGE lily pads in the green houses!

The Japanese garden was in full bloom!

Not sure what these wild flowers were... but they sure were tall and pretty

We took a wander through the Queen Charlotte's Cottage

After a fun day in the park, we headed in doors to visit Churchill's War Rooms the next day

The Museum was really good and definitely brought everything to life

 They had the door to 10 Downing Street when Churchill was living there in the Museum

We were not able to get as close to the same door today though... This is a picture the day the elections results were announced. Pretty exciting time in the UK. It is not every day you get to be tourist in your own city! 

Our last London visitors!

We had some very special visitors before we head across the pond - Grandmother, Nancy and Ed!

We met up with them the first night in the hotel. 

Everyone had been traveling, so we decided to do a low key evening 

The honorary phone booth picture!

The next night we went to dinner earlier in the evening with Grandmother to Muriel's Kitchen. (It is one of my favorites!) After dinner, Ed and Nancy had organized for the 4 of us to go see a new play 'The Play that goes Wrong'. We were laughing our butts off the whole time! It was a great play and highly recommend it to others!

After the play we went out for a night cap and found a place with some oysters to try as well!

 

What a great evening!

Friday we went to another favorite in the city Gordon's Wine Bar after a delicious meal at Arbutus! I think Nancy and Ed enjoyed it just as much as we do :)  

Saturday we all went to Royal Albert Hall to enjoy a jazz lunch.

Everyone was smiling ear to ear and really enjoyed the music : )

After the jazz lunch, we went on a tour of RAH.... all i can say is how breathing taking it is!

This is a picture of the ceiling... originally the acoustics were really terrible and it was known as the only place a composer would be guaranteed to hear their concert twice, once when it was played and then again with the echo.  These discs were not put in until 1969...it was opened in 1871... nearly 100 years later!

Queen Victoria had these symbols placed ALL over the hall so no one would ever forget why it was built.... and if that wasn't enough to not forget, she had a memorial placed across the street that cost more than the hall itself to build!

Having fun playing!

Here is the hall from the outside... and below is the memorial that is across the street

Since we were in Hyde Park already, we decided to take a stroll over to 

Princess of Wales memorial fountain

The big kids in the group did a toe dip in the water!

It was a beautiful day and it was fun seeing the kids really enjoying themselves in the park

After the park, we headed back toward the hotel for our afternoon tea :) The ladies enjoyed some lovely and tasty treats while the blokes wandered off to a nearby pub for their own version of 'tea' haha

After tea the 4 of us went off to see 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the nighttime'. Everyone had already seen this play, however we loved it so much we all went back for a second viewing! Clearly a winner in our eyes!

Curious was a great way to end their trip in London! We really enjoyed getting to hang out with all 3 of them and are looking forward to seeing Grandmother back in NC and visiting Ed and Nancy in Jackson sometime soon! 

Madrid - Europe's sunniest capital!

We sure do love May... 2 bank holidays!!!! Making the most of our time, we headed to Madrid for a long and relaxing weekend. Jeff works with 2 people from Madrid so we were armed to take on the city with plenty of recommendations.

We got in late the first night, so headed out early the next morning for a walking tour to help get our bearings down. We started out in Porta del Sol

As the picture says, it is the middle of Spain and KM.0

(Turns out KM.0 is actually not here... but close enough for us!)

She took us to some of the big sites that we knew 

we wanted to go back to late on in our stay

Our guide recommended the 'sherry' like shots in edible chocolate glasses. Different from anything we have ever tried, but tasty all the same!

 After the tour, we decided to seek out La Latina area and try our own little tapas and vino tour. 

We had a grand old time and left the evening with a new hat.

I was able to drive a hard bargain with the hat man and it made my night!

After a bit of a lie in the next day, we ventured out and saw some of the sights from the day before and a few new ones!

The impressive gateway to the city

It was too beautiful not to go outside and enjoy the sun in Madrid's former royal park

The lake was full of boaters... given the queue we decided to head back later 

(aka when it was not Saturday afternoon)

 There is an Egyptian temple in Madrid that has amazing views and cool exhibit to wonder

 And of course found some interesting and fun poses to capture the moments!

We had heard good things about Toledo... so we ventured to the train station the next morning to head that way! Toledo was once the capital of Spain and is declared a Unesco world heritage site. 

On the way to Toledo... we stumbled across the turtle 'farm' inside the train station. 

So cool!

Toledo is surrounding by rivers and set up on a hill

We took the bus from the train station and saw some of the best views around

I can't get enough of the black and white - love these pictures!!!!

We saw some of our first wild poppies in the field! Jeffrey was playing with the focal points and took some great pictures!

Later that evening, we went on a tapas food! Great evening meeting and eating lots of different types of food. It is pretty cool getting to meet people from all walks of life and their perspective on things. Here are a few of the food highlights:

• amazing, hot and fresh spanish omelette
• how to pick out delicious iberian jamon
• interesting Octopus

With another beautiful day the following day, we headed to the Botanical Gardens

Soooo many beautiful flowers... we ended up wondering for 2-3 hours!

 

 

After a bit of wondering, we decided to head back 

to Retiro Park to have a go at the paddle boats

 We really enjoyed the time out on the water!!!

After paddling our hearts out, we wondered past the 

Crystal Palace before heading back for dinner

To top off the trip, on the last day, we did an audio tour through the Royal Palace. It was inspired by Versailles and has over 3000 rooms! Each room was visited was pretty unique and had very different themes. We are headed to Versailles in June and looking forward to seeing how they compare!

Madrid is awesome and we can definitely see why it is considered to be Europe's sunniest capital! The tapa, wine, churros and SUN are definitely the visit!