London

Long post today…Our lodging provides “a full English breakfast” each morning. We were up early and were treated to this- I got the vegetarian sausage option. Good fun but too much!

I have a list for “possible activities for each day….the first one of the day was to get to Buckingham Palace in time to get a good spot to view the “changing of the guard”  its performed each Monday-Wed-Friday.  Looks like we were traveling against the worker traffic in the early morning.(we’re heading down the escalator on the right” )

We got there over an hour early and decided to just hang tight in hopes that we’d have a good view.  The front of Buckingham Palace. No royals in sight, haha. 

Guilded gold statue. Seems to be popular. 

Even the gates have some gold on them. 

This is apparently the “old guard” as we could hear some of the troop call-outs.  Sorry for the black iron bars. Apparently they didn’t trust us to be inside the gates! 

Cool horses escorted the new guard…the ones with the “big hats”.

Bobbie’s all around keeping the crowd in check. 

Finally the band shows up. 

I’m including some videos so you can get the idea of the atmosphere.

The two guards made lots of gestures to trade off duties  

More videos of the handoffs….

It was fun to view but took about 2 hours so probably a one time thing!

Lastly, the horse guard escorted everyone back to their stations. 

After a little nap in the warm sunshine over in adjacent Green Park, we headed out on foot for more activities.   

We wandered the leggy of St. James park on our way to Trafalger Sq. 

Another lovely part. This one with a pretty pond. With lots of wildlife. 

On to Trafalger area. 

Quite pretty and well attended in the noon time sun. 

This is a special sign for Duane’s sister who lives in Leicester,NC!

And I couldn’t pass up a visit to Chinatown.  

Had a nice sit-down meal for lunch. 

Then it was hoofing it to Westminster Abbey, unfortunately it was not open for visitors.

And lovely views of the House of Parliament.  Not sure why it looks like the tower is leaning. Just a weird camera angle. 

We did get to go into Westminster Cathedral…unfortunately they don’t allow photos. It was very lovely as churches go…

But here is an internet photo so you can see how pretty it is inside  

Another cool building…sorry, I lost track…

The footsies were angry after 18,000 steps according to my Fitbit  plus 2 hours of standing on concrete fat Buckingham Palace…we opted to catch a double decker bus back to a station close to Picadilly Circus since it was on the list of things to see.

View from the top wasn’t really anything special.  

Heading towards Picadilly Circus.

Not really much there for us other than lots of restaurants and shopping 

We were pretty weary at this point and headed to the subway to head to the room. Getting the hang of the subway system now.  

Since we’d had a big meal for lunch we opted for a nice sandwich and some treats from the quick-stop grocery store to bring back to the room.   The big beers were 3 for 6 pounds so couldn’t resist. Chose three that looked interesting.  My Polish friends may be familiar with the Pilsner on the right. Good fun!