2023-08-04: Tea, Clocks, and Royalty

We woke up at 8:00am this morning. We got ourselves showered and dressed and headed to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We returned to the room to grab our gear for the day and headed outside.

Our first stop was Trafalgar Square which is a few blocks from the hotel. It’s a Square with a fountain and several statues/monuments. It’s an interesting place to walk around. From Trafalgar Square we continued down Whitehall Street to the Horse Guard’s Parade. At 11:00am each day they perform a changing of the guard ceremony on horseback. We watched the ceremony which was a little disappointing. The old guard entered the parade and lined up. The new guard arrived a few minutes later. Then part of the new guard disappeared through the building and then nothing happened for about another 20 minutes. Then some of the old guard returned from the building. They must have replaced some of the guard elsewhere and then came back. It was just a long time to wait with nothing happening. Once the old guard returned, they performed the changeover ceremony in the parade and the old guard left for the stables.

Once the ceremony was complete, we walked past 10 Downing Street and over to the parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey. The kids decided they weren’t interested in going inside Westminster Abbey so we explored the area for a bit and moved along. We walked to St. James’s Park. It’s a large park with a lake that runs from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Parade. The park is full of flowers and water fowl. There were a great number of ducks, geese, swans, and other birds. It was fun to watch them swim around in the lake.

After walking through the park for a while, it was time to make our way over to St. Ermin’s Hotel. They have a tea lounge at the hotel and we had made a 1:30pm reservation for afternoon tea. When we arrived we were given the option to sit in the dining room inside or out on the terrace. It was a pleasant day so we decided to sit on the terrace. While we were enjoying our tea some bugs started to fly around. The staff said they have a bee terrace on the 4th floor and it was bees that were flying around. Looking at them. we were fairly sure they were wasps, not bees. Michael wasn’t very impressed with the bugs. They offered to move us indoors if we wanted. We decided to stay on the terrace. We had to shoe them away several times but were able to enjoy the experience. The terrace was a beautiful setting.

We made our way to Buckingham Palace once tea was finished. We had tickets to tour the palace at 3:00pm. They were much more security conscious at Buckingham Palace then they were at Windsor Castle. We brought water bottles into Windsor Castle, but they were forbidden at Buckingham Palace. They also made us take all our bags off our shoulders and carry them in our hands for the duration of the tour which was a little odd. The same as Windsor Castle, we weren’t allowed to take any photos on the tour which is unfortunate. The rooms we walked through were very ornate and filled with amazing paintings, pottery, and other decorations. The wood and stonework of the rooms themselves was also incredible. Once you leave the palace you can exit immediately or take a path through the gardens of the estate and through another exit at the back of the property. We decided to take the garden path. Some of the plants along the way were interesting. After leaving the garden, we made our way around to the front of Buckingham Palace to take a few photos. We also stopped at the Canada Gate for a few minutes. We had about an hour until our timed entry for the London Eye so we grabbed some ice cream for the kids and had a seat by the Canada Gate for a few minutes.

We continued on our way and started our walk to the London Eye. Once we were in the vicinity of the parliament buildings again, the crowds became intense. We were dodging between people which wasn’t terribly fun. We crossed over the River Thames and walked down the bank of the river to the London Eye. It was 6:15pm at this point. We got in line and were on the attraction fairly quickly. It takes about half an hour for the Eye to do a rotation. It was neat to see the parliament and other buildings in the area from a higher vantage point. They provide a commentary of what some of the surrounding buildings are. The pods are bigger than you realize. There were about 25 people in our pod.

Once our ride was over, we checked out the gift shop quickly and headed back towards the hotel. Patrick wanted to try TGI Friday’s for dinner which was right by the hotel. We made our way there and tried to get a table. It was about an hour wait for a table. We weren’t about to wait for an hour so we ended up at an Italian restaurant around the corner. The number of Italian restaurants in the heart of London is insane. The road we were on had four or five Italian restaurants side by side. We were a little disappointed by the meal but it filled the tummies. We headed back to the hotel once the meal was done and got ourselves ready for bed.