Kew Gardens, England

Today, we visited Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew).

We took the London Underground's District-Richmond branch (Kew Garden Station is 1200 feet from the Victoria Gate entrance to Kew Gardens).

There was a lovely Children's Playground, where Alex played a bit.

Afterward, we explored the actual gardens.

We decided to explore some of the Greenhouses where cacti were planted.

We saw a significant number of beautiful butterflies.

A butterfly landed on me.

At one end of Kew Gardens is a giant, multistory Pagoda.

The Pagoda was completed in 1762. The ten-story octagonal structure is 163 ft high (nearly 50 m). 

The Pagoda tapers, with successive floors from the first to the topmost being 1 ft less (30 cm) in diameter and height than the preceding one. The original building was very colorful; the roofs being covered with varnished iron plates, with a dragon on each corner. There were 80 dragons in all each carved from wood and gilded with real gold.

There have been several restorations, mainly to the roofs, but the original colors and the dragons have not been replaced though the question of replica dragons was discussed in 1979.

We had a wonderful time at Kew Gardens and hope to return!