London-Day One, the V & A (finally!)

We arrived at Heathrow just before 7AM and after a long tube ride, packed in with locals on their way to work, we arrived at our hotel.
Earl’s Court is a reviving neighborhood and our hotel is on a cute little street with townhomes, many of which have been turned into hotels. Penywern St “T”’s with Earl’s Court Rd. where there are lots of little shops and restaurants.

We felt quite at home in our little neighborhood. The tube station is a block from our hotel so it is easy to get about to our destinations. London has great public transportation. We bought seven day passes good for all underground and bus transportation within a certain zone, so we have been hopping on and off busses, walking about till we find the right stop and hopping on and off again.

So we stowed our baggage and took off for the V&A (the Victoria and Albert Museum).

We spent a couple hours there, a little overwhelmed and then started exploring London. At this point we had hardly seen the outside since we had done most of our traveling by underground. It's hard to pick a sampling of pictures from the museum. There was just so much. It was incredible. We took a break from oggling (our feet were already complaining and we were getting hungry.) We had a great snack at the museum in an incredibly decorated room. The goal when the museum was first started was to have tile decorating most of the areas. The dining room is one that was completed.

This is one of the stairwells, not the dining room, but it gives you an idea of the style of decoration.

Well, this is a brief and incomplete overview of the first half of our first day in London. More to come...