Kensington Palace is a home of classic royal love stories to share with your family

Tips for visiting Kensington Palace
By Mark Fitzgerald

Kensington Palace Staircase

We plan on visiting Kensington Palace just after we have landed in London.  The main purpose is to stay awake and adjust to the new time zone. While we will walk through some of the Kensington Palace Gardens most of it and the park will be left for another part of our trip. With that said, there is plenty to see and enjoy at this London attraction. We enter in from Broad Walk just north of the Queen Victoria statue, walk by the sunken garden and then to the main entrance.

There are three main parts to the palace. As we enter we will go up the stone stairs to "Victoria Revealed" on the 1st floor (remember in the UK there is the ground floor and what in the US we would call the second floor is the called the 1st floor.). This exhibit focuses on the life of Queen Victoria from birth to death and her storybook relationship with Prince Albert.

We will then head back down the stone stairs and head to the vestibule and turn left. This will lead us to stairs heading up to the second floor and we will visit the King's State apartments. To get to the Queen's state Apartments you need to come back downstairs and find another staircase to head up to the second floor once again.

Afterwards we will head down the stairs into the cafe area. The Orangery is a cafe at the palace and has received high reviews, but we will skip it this trip.  If you are looking for a place to do Tea Time with your family, the Orangery is highly recommended.  The bathrooms are in the cafe area and also near the vestibule.  There is no mention of wifi being available in the museum.

The bulk of the palace is still a residence for the royal family. It is subdivided into several apartments. There are officially 4 royal families in residence with the most notable being the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Catherine.

London Transport provides several options to get to Kensington Palace.  The most accessible Tube Station is High Street Kensington on the Circle or District lines.  You could also use Queensway on the Central line.  You can always use the London Transport option of riding a bike or one of the many buses in the area. There are several bike docks throughout Kensington Gardens, the closest being on Broad Walk near Kensington Rd.

CNN provides us a preview of Kensington Palace in this quick overview:

Floor Plan of Kensington Palace:

Map of Kensington Palace:

Going on a family vacation builds memories, provides life changing experiences and helps teach about the world we live in. Take time to explore, enjoy and have fun. If Kensington Palace sounded interesting, you may also like the Banqueting House. You can also look at our entire list of London Attractions.

The website for Kensington Palace is:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/KensingtonPalace/

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