First Day of Sight Seeing

After a quick breakfast of toasted cake and nutella, we met our guide this morning at 9am in the hotel lobby.  Michael is a native of the London area and is on his second career as a tour guide. He was very engaging with the kids and they were excited about having a day of sight-seeing.  Michael put Charlotte in charge of spotting all the dragons she could find, James was in charge of lions and Madeleine was assigned unicorns (Michael later noticed she had unicorns on her shirt).

Today was a walking tour of St. James' Park, the area around Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, and Covent Gardens.  We were scheduled to see the Changing of the Guard this morning, but since it was raining slightly the changing ceremony was not held.  Instead, we visited the War Rooms of Winston Churchill - Brannon was very excited to see a museum about one of his favorite subjects in history. And of course I learned a lot since my knowledge of history does not extend past the Civil War (or at least that is what Brannon told our guide).  We also toured the London Transportation Museum where we learned about the history of the buses, trams, subway cars and other modes of public transport in the city.

Michael left us around 5pm in the Covent Garden area where we then ate dinner at Balthazar's and then found Hamley's, a 7 story toy store just down the road from Piccadilly Circus.  Amazingly, the kids did not find anything they just had to have at the store.  That may tell you just how tired they were.  We walked close to 8 miles today and I am proud to say that we didn't have a melt down and they were still in a pretty good mood when we made it back to the hotel around 8:30pm.

Madeleine's favorite part of the day was shopping in Covent Garden.  James liked the London Transportation Museum the best (he got to pretend to drive a bus and a train).  Charlotte's favorite thing was the ceilings of Westminster Abbey ("it's amazing!"). And I think Brannon and I enjoyed the War Rooms the most.

in front of Buckingham Palace (the Queen was not in residence today)

enjoying the pretty flowers in St. James' Park

the Gardener's Quarters in St. James' Park - note the large white pelicans on the rocks in the foreground

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey (no photography is allowed inside) - Michael is the gentleman on the far left

the underground War Room - Winston Churchill's seat has the rounded back

the communications room in the bunker

Winston Churchill's quarters in the bunker

Piccadilly Circus

Covent Gardens

horse-drawn railcar in the London Transportation Museum

bus driver James

Mommy and her driver

climbing to the top of an old double decker tram

"Ole Bill" - a bus used in WWI to transport troops and then returned to public service on the streets on London after the war ended