Kew Gardens

There are four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in London, which is a lot for one city! Until last month, I had been to three of them: Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and Maritime Greenwich. These three are all (sort of) free to visit, although you have to pay to go inside some attractions.

Based on the title of this post, you might be able to guess that the fourth one is Kew Gardens!

This is a place that I'd wanted to visit for a while, but the high prices had put me off, as it costs around £25 if you're over 29 (which unfortunately I am, but only just!). If two of you are going, that works out as £50, which is a lot for a day out.

However, after doing a little search online, I found out that you can get 2 for 1 entry with a coupon from Days Out Guide, provided that you travel by train to Richmond station and show your train tickets on entry. As we'd planned to go by train anyway, this was really ideal for us!

After travelling to the park and successfully obtaining our 2 for 1 tickets, the first sight we went to see was the Great Pagoda, which stands at 50 metres high and was inspired by similar buildings in China.

After that, we explored another Asian-inspired area: Chokushi-Mon & Japanese Landscape. Interestingly, Chokushi-Mon (Gateway of the Imperial Messenger) is a near replica of the Gate of Nishi Hongan-ji (Western Temple of the Original Vow) in Kyoto, Japan. I've always loved Japanese gardens, and this one is super peaceful and beautiful.

Our next stop was Queen Charlotte's Cottage (I did not know I had a cottage in Kew Gardens, haha). This building was built in the 18th century and is more like a mansion than a cottage!

Kew Gardens is a huge place and it sometimes takes a lot of walking to get from one spot to another. However, the entire area is really picturesque and filled with exotic plants, so you're never without some kind of sight to take in.

When crossing the lake in the middle of the park, we were very lucky to see a cute fox hanging around in the hope of being offered some food!

We were quite hungry ourselves by this point, so decided to have lunch at the Orangery, one of the cafés on site. The building was beautiful both on the inside and outside, but the place was crowded and chaotic, and we definitely expected better from the food. We spent around £20 for two average sandwiches and two Pepsi Max (we wanted coffee, but both machines were broken!), which was a little disappointing.

After lunch, we went to take a quick look at Kew Palace. It's a bit small to be a palace really, but it's a nice old building all the same.

The next part of the gardens that we visited was our favourite. The Palm House features various tropical plants from different parts of the world and has a walkway around the top, from where you have great views of the plants inside and the gardens outside. It is very hot and humid inside and made us feel like we were back in Thailand again!

We then went to a completely different part of the world, passing by the Mediterranean Garden, which even has a little temple.

We then visited the Temperate House, which is similar to the Palm House but with plants from the temperate zones of the world (unsurprisingly!). This building is filled with beautiful plants and a little indoor waterfall.

The third greenhouse we passed through was a smaller one that was filled with plants from Western Australia.

We finished off our day by walking along the Treetop Walkway. This is pretty similar to the one in Westonbirt and is a great way to see both the trees in the park and views of the city of London in the distance.

Overall, our visit here was long overdue and we enjoyed it a lot. I really liked how the park had different sections that were reminiscent of different parts of the world, such as China, Japan, Australia, the Mediterranean, and tropical jungles, so going there was like going on a little global tour. I don't know if we'll go back there any time soon because of the price, but it's definitely a place worth seeing at least once in your life!

May 2026 Travel Adventures: London Nights, Afternoon Tea and Regent's Park

May has been a month in which we've started to feel a bit of summer in the air - well, actually a lot of summer during the last week of the month! This has given us a good opportunity to enjoy more time outdoors, which is something that both Claudio and I love. Though we didn't visit any new towns and cities last month, we had some great experiences in and around Reading and London.

Here are some highlights!

Madejski Stadium and Green Park

We've ended up spending a fair bit of time in the Green Park area of Reading recently. At the beginning of the month, we went there to check out a café that Claudio's colleague recommended, and took the opportunity to check out the Madejski Stadium, the home of Reading F.C., while we were there.

The café, the Street Bakeshop at Lime Square, turned out to be a great recommendation. In fact, we ended up going back later in the month! The cakes and drinks are great, and the setting by the water is really lovely. It's definitely our favourite café that we've been to in Reading.

We enjoyed walking through the Green Park Business Park, an area which is surprisingly full of nature.

Green Park Village is always a super nice place to explore. Its lake and its North American architecture make you feel like you've stepped into a Hallmark movie!

We tried out the café in the village, Esquires Coffee. I hadn't heard of it before, but apparently it's a Canadian coffee chain, which feels appropriate for the setting. We enjoyed an iced coffee there, sitting in the sunshine next to the lake.

Friday night in London

One Friday, I received an email about a promo at Côte restaurants. We really like Côte, and feeling spontaneous, decided to take advantage of the promo, but in London rather than at home in Reading. So we ended up spending our Friday evening drinking great wine and eating delicious food next to the river with views of the City and Tower Bridge.

Going to London on a Friday evening feels completely different to going at the weekend - it's much less touristy and more relaxed. Given that we're only 25 minutes away from Paddington, we're going to try this more often in the future!

Afternoon tea at the Pantry, Reading

Who doesn't love a good afternoon tea? We certainly do!

When my parents visited us recently, we tried out the afternoon tea at the Pantry, which is the café located in Reading's Town Hall & Museum. At £18.50 per person, it's around half the price you'd usually pay for an afternoon tea in this part of the country, but was up there in quality with more expensive ones we've had in the past. The setting of the café inside the grand old building also gives it a really nice atmosphere. Would definitely recommend!

Reading "Beach"

A few weeks ago, there suddenly appeared a sort of beach bar type set up next to the river in Reading town centre. We went there a couple of times for a drink during the recent heatwave. It's quite nice to have a sort of beach to spend time at when it's hot and you live far away from the coast!

Regent's Park, Primrose Hill and Camden Town

We decided to spend the last day of the late May bank holiday in London, enjoying some outdoor spaces. One place we'd never explored together was Regent's Park, so we headed there first of all. Even though it was busy, the park is so huge that it still felt very tranquil.

London's second biggest park has plenty of attractions, including a beautiful little Japanese garden, complete with a waterfall.

Another highlight is Queen Mary's Rose Garden, which is so colourful and smells amazing.

We also went to look at London Central Mosque, a very impressive building.

After exploring Regent's Park, we moved on to Primrose Hill, climbing up to the top to enjoy the incredible view of the city's landmarks.

The final place we visited was Camden Town, which was somewhere we'd been meaning to visit for a while, not because we were especially interested in going, but because it's a famous area we hadn't visited yet. As expected, we didn't really like the vibe of the area (it smells a lot of both cannabis and body odour, and is very chaotic) but at least we can now say we've been!

That's all for our May travels, but June has already brought some very exciting travel adventures for us, in two foreign countries! Check back here soon to read all about it...