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| Buckingham Palace |
After we hit up our local Indian man's hole-in-the-wall breakfast place, we scurried off to Buckingham Palace. Every morning at 10:00 AM is the changing of the guard, which is supposed to be a really cool thing to watch. We got there around 9:30 and fought for a spot near the gate and waited. And waited. There was a giant crowd of people in front of the palace all waiting for the guard to change too. And all 500 of us continued to wait. And wait. Eventually some guys on horses rode by, and there were whispers that the guard change was not happening today. Why you ask? We never found out. Tired of waiting and fairly sure by this time the show would not begin, we left Buckingham Palace to find the Imperial War Museum.
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| Us waiting at Buckingham Palace |
FUN FACT #79: Buckingham Palace was originally a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703. It was acquired by King George III in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte which began its use by the monarchy. It became the official royal palace when Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.
The Imperial War Museum was a pretty cool place. It had two 15 inch cannons out front to make it look incredibly intimidating. Inside, the museum had a special exhibit on World War I. We spent the better part of 2 hours just going through and reading everything in this place. It was very fascinating stuff! But myself and my family couldn't help but wonder where anything was written about the American involvement. Finally, in the last 10 minutes of the exhibit, we finally read some short paragraphs of the U.S. Army landing in Europe. It truly read as if we arrived to provide the British with backup and didn't really help at all. Classic.
Following that exhibit, we continued to peruse around the Museum. The rest of the place was mostly old objects- from hand guns to tanks to planes. We walked around a bit until we felt our brains were stuffed as much as could be and headed off to Kensington Palace.
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| The entrance to the Imperial War Museum |
FUN FACT #80: Kensington Palace was built in 1619, but was not bought by Monarchs William and Mary until 1689. This began royal residency here. Victoria grew up in this house until her uncle died and she became Queen at the age of 18. Today, this is the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate and their son George.
Kensington Palace is right on the border of a park with beautiful gardens and ponds. In front is a large statue of Queen Victoria which makes the outer appearance of the palace very impressive. Inside are some beautiful staterooms with relics from Queen Anne and Queen Victoria's time, but truthfully these were rather boring. If I'm being honest, I really don't care that much about the toy doll Queen Anne used to play with as a kid....
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| Queen Victoria's statue in front of Kensington Palace |
The best part in my opinion was the royal dress room! Although my dad and brother weren't huge fans, I really enjoyed seeing Queen Elizabeth II's and her sister Princess Margaret's old fancy dresses from the fifties. We also saw some of Princess Diana's clothes- which were very eighties I might add. When sort of ran through these rooms as we were being ushered out while the palace closed for visitors.
Following Kensington Palace, we walked to find a restaurant to eat at. After some squabbling and extra walking, we ended up at a really great Chinese place. We skipped lunch again so we were starving as we scarfed down lo mein. It was another fun day.
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