Monday with the Queen -- Sort of!

After breakfast, we set out for Buckingham Palace. We were in search of tickets to tour the inside of Buckingham. Tradition is that the public is allowed to tour the State Rooms of the palace when the Queen is away in Scotland on holiday. We arrived early. (only because I yelled, "We've overslept! Get up! It's 8 o'clock! And Linda moved faster than the speed of light.) Turns out I misread watch and it was really only 7 o'clock. Even arriving that early we were only able to purchase tickets for the 3:45 time slot. What to do with ourselves in the meantime? We opted to purchase tickets to tour The Queens' Gallery which offered an exception exhibit from Leonard DaVinci and his study of human anatomy. This was more than you could really comprehened. The actual notebook of his studies was showcased in the gallery. The cover was dated from the 1500's. He learned about anatomy by doing autopseys in hostpitals. He was remarkable in his knowledge.

Queens Coach

We also got a ticket to tour the Mews -- this is the Royal Transportation Center. This is on the grounds of the palace. It houses all of the carriages, cars, and horses used by the royal family for ceremonial occasions. It was quite amazing to see them up close. We got to see a great deal of material here. Even Jasper, one of the greys used to pull the Queen's carriage. Truly worth the time and trouble to tour.

Following the Mews we went to watch the Changing of the Guard. We perched our selves outside the Wellington Barracks where the band and soldiers depart for the palace. We ended up with a couple of hours to kill so we decided to walk around the outside of the castle. Take our advice: Do not hike around Buckingham Palace. There is nothing to see. We must have walked fifty miles around that thing! Okay maybe it was only two or three miles -- but it was boring with a capital B! We finished off the hike with a glass of wine at the Bag of Nails Pub.

Then we managed to somehow get into the Palace fifteen minutes ahead of time. Linda was about to confess to our sin of cheating until I elbowed her in the ribs and said "SSShhh!!1" We toured 19 state rooms of the palace. This was awesome. The art, the furniture, the lifestyle was breathtaking.

 

The toured ended with a walk through the Queens gardens where she can host lawn parties for up to 8,ooo at one time. The only problem was we had to come home -- somehow. Cutting to the chase -- after searching for Harrods Department store which was way out of our league, we opted for a taxi!!!Linda would have stayed and still been there trying to figure it out -- I said, "Screw it! Get a taxi!!" Two glasses of wine later we are both laughing at our escapades here across the pond!

Ballroom Buckingham Palace