Kensington Palace

Today, I went to tour Kensington Palace. (but no photos allowed, so none uploaded to Flickr)

What I learned....

1) This isn't a "must see" - Buckingham (in the summer months when it is open for tours) and Windsor are, but this is not.

2) It has rotating special exhibits, currently on display is about Debutantes, and the year of the last Debs 1958. It was pretty interesting, especially the 30 minute video interviewing some of the women. I couldn't believe that in current dollars, a "shoestring budget" Deb would spend about 11,000 GBP and a "all out" budget would be about 122,000 GBP!!! "The Season" was several months long and was basically all parties; as one woman said, obviously they weren't studying for their A-level exams, focusing on studies, etc.

3) The first part of the tour is about Royal Dress and what was entailed in the garments. It was itneresting and I think more could be done with it. Also on display were about eight dresses of Diana's.

4) The palace rooms are very nice and oddly tastefully done, yet somewhat sparse in terms of decorations.

5) The tour only took me two hours I think, and I watched the 30 minute video and listened to every minute of the audio commentary and read all the things on the walls.