I’ll start with a memorable moment.
A Royal Sighting
A friend of mine is a bit of a Royal Watcher and tasked me with “finding Kate” on my trip. Imagine her reaction when I texted her that although I didn’t locate the missing princess, I did stumble across someone else…
Somewhere in the middle of our trip I wanted to go back to Buckingham Palace to get some pictures up close because when we walked by on arrival day, I didn’t really register what I was looking at. We strolled in that direction via St James’s Palace where we noticed a crowd of people gathered. Soon one of those trumpet-y marching bands started playing, and marching, and the crowd started walking along with them, so we shrugged and joined in. We found ourselves walking up The Mall with about a million other people while the band played and my husband commented that this was so “not him.” My crowd-averse introvert husband in the middle of hordes of people marching in a parade towards Buckingham Palace – it was pretty comical. He asked what was going on. I had no idea. It wasn’t time for the changing of the guards, and this didn’t seem like that. We stopped close to the palace and were standing around when I saw a few police motorcycles and horses leading a couple of fancy looking black cars up The Mall. I wondered aloud who it might be and as the cars slowly passed us, I heard my husband exclaim “Oh! It’s Charles!” And there he was, right in front of us, waving that royal wave from the back of the car. The people around us started holding up their phones, of course, but we didn’t, we just stayed in the moment – and it really was about 5 seconds – so although I have pictures of everything else I saw in London, I did not get a photo of that time we went to London and got caught up in a parade and saw King Charles III.
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Day 1: We landed at Heathrow the way we always do on the first day – frazzled, sleep deprived, and feeling like we were in a dream. We headed to the terminal 2&3 tube station to find “Piccadilly Cockfosters,” but it was blocked off due to flooding in the station, so we pulled up the TfL GO app and found another way. By ‘we’ I mean my husband as I was pretty zoned out. I think we took the Elizabeth line but not sure. We got to our hotel around 1pm and were able to check-in immediately. After freshening up we headed out to walk. Our hotel was located in a good place to stroll by some of the ‘greatest hits’ for a first-timer. We walked around Buckingham Palace, St. James’s Park (we would end up here a few times, it’s such a pretty place!), Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, Whitehall, London Eye, etc. Everything on day 1 always feels surreal (I watched Notting Hill on the plane, so forgive me if I say it was “surreal, but nice”).
Day 2: First stop was Westminster Abbey. We had pre-purchased tickets but it was not very crowded and may not have been necessary. The history and architecture of the Abbey was remarkable, and it was fun to have the recent coronation in mind while walking around. We had tickets for the Diamond Jubilee Gallery upstairs – 108 stairs to be exact – and we emerged at the top to see others getting out of the elevator that we somehow missed. One thing that I thought was odd up here is that there are several great viewpoints looking down into the Abbey, and you’re allowed to take photos everywhere except in these spots. Not sure why.
After an hour or two we emerged and the sun was shining, so we started doing Rick’s Bankside Walk. The most interesting stops to us were Shakespeare’s Globe, Winchester Palace ruins, Borough Market, and Southwark Cathedral and garden with Shakespeare statue. It was Friday afternoon so Borough Market was very crowded and we didn’t try any food. We did receive the pleasure of a man dressed as Willy Wonka turning a corner, bumping into my husband, and blowing marijuana smoke in his face.
