London Walking Tour

This morning the walking tour started out infront of the Wellington Arch in Hyde Park.

So something funny happened as the tour started. It was a pretty big group so the tour guide was going around pointing at everyone and having them yell out where they are from. There were a couple people a ways infront of me that said they were from California, so I am thinking that I should meet them and find out where. I was so caught up in thinking about this that when the guide pointed at me I yelled out "Canada".....what! The girl before me had said she was from Canada. I felt sooo blonde! I had to fess up too because that girl asked me where in Canada I was from.... hehe.... we ended up hanging out for the rest of the day though.

Anyway...Duke Wellington was an extremely popular leader in England. This arch comemorates when he overtook Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo. The statue on the top is the goddess of Peace.

Hyde park is really beautiful in the fall.

While we were coming up on Buckingham pallace, the Queens horse guards passed by. They all get such great hats!

Buckingham Pallace. The Union Jack flag was flying over the palace which apparently means she is not at home. No tea with the queen today... Queen Victoria is on the front of the statue behind me. She is the longest reigning Queen to date. She ruled for 63 years. The current Queen, Elizabeth is getting close to overtaking that record.

This is Prince Charles house. Again...the Union Jack, not at home either.

One of the guard boxes behind his house was unoccupied, so we got to stop and take some cheezy tourist pictures.

Then we moved on to Trafalga square, which comemorates some other famous battle which I can't remember at this point.

We came through this really beautiful arch. You can see that the road here is red. That's becuase this road leads directly to Buckingham palace.

Here is the whole group in front of a museum dedicated to the Horseguards. The canadian, Jen, is to my right. The guy in the beanie just behind me also hung out with us this afternoon. Darren from Australia.

Next we went by Churchill's War Cabinet Bunker, where the tour guide shared with us some of his favorite Churchill quotes. One I particularly liked was once at a party when a woman came up to him and said "Churchill, you're drunk!" And he came back with, "Well, you're ugly and at least when I wake up in the morning I'll be sober" Hehe....that would have been splashed across every tabloid around if it had come from one of our politicians.

We finished off the tour and the Ausi, Canadian and I went and got some lunch and then headed to the National Gallery to go on an hour tour there. You would think you could cover quite a bit of art in an hour. We only got through about 5 paintings. The tour guide was very passionate about all the pieces she talked about, none of which I particularly enjoyed. It did teach me though that there is so much to art that I don't understand, and that what I look at for a quick second holds tons of meaning. It is always interesting to meet passionate people.

We got done at the mueseum about 4:45 - it is already getting dark so early! So it was a great day and I met some more interesting international friends.

As I wandered back to the underground, I walked past the Centaph. This is where the Queen had placed her poppy wreath on Remembrance Sunday. I of course could not see her at all, but she was there!