Teesh’s last day in London and Europe I guess started off rather leisurely with a breakfast at Raoul’s. I wanted to show Teesh just how orange the egg yolks were plus I was craving an Egg Benedict like I couldn’t believe. Surprisingly it wasn’t very busy though I guess it was just about 9am when we arrived. We were seated outside thankfully so we could enjoy the glorious day that was developing.

Service today wasn’t that fantastic. A little slow, a little disinterested but I didn’t really care – I just wanted my eggs benedict. When it arrived it looked really good but actually it wasn’t as tasty as the one I’d had previously at The Wolseley. Still, it was enough to satisfy my craving … for now. 🙂

After breakfast we headed to Kensington Palace to do a tour there. Considering I’ve lived about five minutes walk from the Palace for the last five plus years I’ve never actually been inside the Palace! Today the Palace is the official residence of The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; the Duke and Duchess of Kent; and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent but is most well-known for being the former official residence of Princess Diana. Every year on the anniversary of her death the public lay flowers and wreathes on the fence in her memory.

I must admit I’ve seen much plusher abodes. Most of what we saw were exhibition rooms including featuring all the beautiful dresses that Princess Diana wore. You get an audio tour to take you through the highlights but halfway through the number of the audit lets you down and soon enough I’d stopped listening to it as the numbers either started to disappear or not match! The most interesting bit of the palace was reading all about debutantes and the things they used to go through. It was absolutely astonishing all the rules that governed the presentation of the debs not to mention the amount of money spent in one season or even on one dress and all the accoutrements.

What better way to end Teesh’s visit to London with an afternoon tea. As we were conscious of the time and also we were in the area we decided to try afternoon tea in Kensington Palace’s Orangery. You can’t book it the afternoon tea so it’s a case of wait and hope you are seated quickly. The day was an absolutely glorious day so quite a few people had turned up for afternoon tea. There are a large number of tables outside but they were hot commodity and, speaking of hot, it was a very hot day so inside suited us much better. The room inside is long, white, with a very tall ceiling.

There were hundreds of wait staff milling about. Okay, more like about ten for about twenty tables so service was pretty good. In keeping with the spirit of our visit to Kensington Palace we opted for the Debutantes’ Tea service which consisted of Cucumber, cream cheese & chive sandwich on poppy seed bread, egg mayonnaise vol-au-vent, warm sausage roll, pineapple and cheese cocktail stick plus a fruit scone with Cornish clotted cream & strawberry jam (substituted for the slice of chocolate cake) plus pot of tea. It was lovely but if I were to be entirely honest at £14.75 I felt it was a tad overpriced.