This quote is from earlier in our trip, and we've used it a couple of times here in London: First, you can't just walk up to the guards at Buckingham Palace, they're behind the gate - very disappointing! Second, London Bridge is nothing more than a very plain looking bridge - also disappointing!
Besides that though, we've had a great time in London. Saturday and Sunday were finally warm and sunny, and we even got a little color on our arms, and progressed with our fun sandal tans.
Saturday we started the day by heading out to Notting Hill for the markets there. As I told Maggie, I had high expectations based on my love for that movie. And while the markets were completely overrun with people, mostly tourists I'm sure, they were still pretty impressive, stretching for blocks and blocks with everything from antiques to paella (maggie's lunch) to dresses and jeans. It's also funny how in London we've honestly heard about the same amount of English, if not less, than we did in all of the other countries. The diversity is amazing.
From Notting Hill we walked to Kensington Gardens, which then turns into Hyde Park. We passed a memorial playground and fountain for Princess Diana, and Prince Albert Hall, which is a pretty impressive building. We spent quite a while just walking through the park - London has a lot of green space, which is really nice, and there were all sorts of people out walking, running, and just sitting out on the grass. We then left the park to go check out Harrod's. We definitely couldn't afford anything there, but it was fun to look around, especially in the food section, which had chocolate, bread, and even Krispy Kreme's! From there we walked towards Buckingham Palace, though we got a little distracted when we saw a big crowd over in Hyde Park. We decided to go check it out, only to discover that it was the World Naked Bike Ride, apparently going on in cities all over the world, advocating for reducing oil dependency. It was wild - literally hundreds of naked men and women (a lot more men than women though) riding bikes in a procession through the park. A few people were walking or rollerblading as well, having joined at the last minute, and well, we just got so caught up in the excitement of it that we decided to strip down and join as well. Ok, maybe not, but it did make us wonder if we would ever be able to do something like that. We decided that our bikinis were probably as far as we would go.
After getting our fill of the bike ride, we walked over to Buckingham Palace, where we snapped some pictures and then walked down a road lined with British flags, where we saw the changing of the guard in front of another building.
We then came across the horse palace, where it looks like they put on horse shows. There we also saw the changing of the guard, this time with about 8 guards on horses. It’s amazing how all of the traditions have been preserved; certainly makes for a good tourist attraction.
That evening we thought about doing a pub crawl, but decided instead to just go to a pub on our own. We did go down to the Leicester Square/ Piccadilly Circus area, which was fun to see at night, since that is where all the theaters and clubs are. There were people all over the place.
Sunday morning we went to the Camden markets and walked around there for a bit, though after having done Notting Hill the day before we didn’t feel the need to stay too long. Afterwards we took the subway to the Westminster/ Parliament area. There we saw Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eye (ferris wheel). We didn’t go in anywhere, but snapped some photos. We were planning to go into Westminster Abbey, and we were sorely disappointed when we realized that it was not open to visitors on Sunday. We hadn’t even considered that that might be an issue. We visited the gift shop though, which was open of course, and at least we both figure that we will be back in London sometime in the not-too-distant future.
From there we passed Churchill’s bunker, where there is now a war museum, and Downey St, where the Prime Minister lives. No one is allowed to go down that block, but we at least got a picture in front of the gate. It was a beautiful day, so we had lunch outside in Trabaltar Square, then headed to the Camden Square area where there were art vendors set up. Since we had some time before the church service at St. Paul’s we had tea at this little patisserie we had seen the night before. We figured we couldn’t go to England with out having tea at least once! And, of course, we had ice cream with the tea to wrap up our record of having ice cream in every city.
After tea we walked along the river to the London Bridge, which as I already mentioned we were a bit disappointed by. By then it was time for the service, so we went to St. Paul’s, which, unlike what I said earlier, is actually an Anglican church. It was huge and beautiful inside, and we sat under the dome. It was nice to have the whole service to just sit there and take it all in. The service was a simple evening prayer service but it was very nice and we felt like it was a nice way to conclude our trip.
Monday morning we got up bright and early, gathered up our bags and headed to the airport, where Maggie would be flying to Chicago and me to Boston to meet my parents. I think that we were both a little sad to see the trip end, and to part ways. After not having spent more than a few days at a time together in the last four years it was an amazing chance to be able to spend the month traveling together and reconnecting. We figured this was our only chance to be able to do a trip like this, and I don’t think we have any regrets about how it went.
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