We grabbed some breakfast at a coffee shop just down the street from the hotel. We ate it as we walked to Buckingham Palace about 10 blocks away. The streets were so interesting. Such a mix of new and old and you could just feel the history around you. We passed some local pubs, Channel 4 TV station, a private school, a church, and several walk-up town homes. They were so cool. We got to the palace about 10am and began taking lots of pictures. I have seen that place so many times on TV but being there in person was just cool. The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton had happened exactly a week before and the whole world was watching. There were still some barricades and press boxes on the grounds but that was all that was left from the event.
The famous changing of the guard was scheduled for 11:30am so we headed to the gift shop. Just outside the shop was a bus stop for the double-decker bus tours. We had looked up the details online ahead of time but checked with the man at the bus stop for costs. We bought our tickets right there on the street and then headed back to the front of the palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. The area went from just a few people standing around to a ton of people!
The Victoria Statue was packed with people and there were about 5-6 people deep standing in front of the palace gates. We saw the marching soldiers line up inside the gate, a marching band, and armed soldiers that all walked in front of the palace. It was just like the 3 o’clock parade at Disney! There were so many people waiting and trying to get a photo and it seemed like they just came out of no where. After the armed group came bye a bunch of people on horse were next. They all went inside the palace gates and lined up in silence. Then one of the soldiers that had a bunch of medals on his jacket started yelling information to the rest of the group. A few at a time started moving around. It was interesting but at some point Michele and I decided we had had enough so we went back to the bus stop and waited for it to arrive.
We took the tour bus to the London Eye area on the River Thames. The walkway along the river had little food shops, the entrance to the London Eye, and a River Cruise. Our bus tour price included a cruise so after we grabbed a bite to eat then boarded a big boat to take a cruise down the river. The River Thames is filthy green. Turns out it has a huge high tide (about 8 ft) and runs right through the middle of London out to the ocean. It was a relaxing ride and we had an entertaining narrator. We got off the boat at the Tower of London. As the boat was turning around to dock we were able to get some great shots of the London Bridge. It was just like I had seen on TV except I hadn’t noticed all the blue trim on the bridge and despite what you have heard... it is not falling down. We didn’t take that tour but instead went inside the Tower of London.
Inside we walked around a lot looking at the old buildings and learned that this was not a happy place back in the day. There was a lot of history around imprisonment, torchure, and death. We toured the Jewel Tower and saw the royal family jewels including crowns, scepters, and tons of gold entertainment and serving pieces. We also toured the Armory Tower where we saw lots of royal armor and gunnery. It was interesting but it was about five or six stories tall with no elevator. It felt like we were never going to reach the bottom on the way out. We were able to catch our double-decker tour bus right outside the Tower complex. We were both really tired from walking so we rode the bus for a long time just taking in the sights. We rode past several memorial and tribute statues, Downing street where the Prime Minister lives, Margaret Thatcher’s house, the very expensive Mayfair neighborhood, through the theater district, and passed the National Gallery. We rode the bus so long that by the time we got off it stopped running for the day. There are not a lot of places to eat near our hotel so we again ended up eating at the hotel lounge. While we were there we used my iPad to look up theater information and plan our last day in London. After we discovered the tickets were just too expensive for the shows we were interested in, we gave up on that idea. We wanted to go to Kensington Palace, Westminster Abby, and the London Eye for our last day. Michele was really concerned about her bag so we also researched what our options were to replace the bag. Turns out there was a TK Maxx (the UK version of TJ Maxx) right next door to Kensington Palace. We were both shocked and amazed. So our plan was to get going in the morning and catch our tour bus at 9am to get to the Kensington area, buy the bag, go to the Palace, drop the bag at the hotel, then go to Westminster Abby before they closed at 1:30pm. It was aggressive but we felt we could do it. We called it a night and prepared for a jammed packed day.
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