London Day 2 - Marching Around the Inner City

My day started just after 4 a.m.! I guess that was better than 2:30 a.m. yesterday, but it will be great when I can sleep in until 6! I didn’t have to wait around too long for Sarah, as she was up very early too—just after 6. We had breakfast and formulated a plan for the day: a wander around the inner city, starting near Big Ben and aiming to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace at 11.

We set off around 7:30, with our usual walk to the train station and then the same District Line into town. The cool thing was the exit from Westminster Station gave us an immediate view of Big Ben’s face. For those who may not know—Ben is a clock! And yes, he is big.

We arrived just before 9 a.m. The added bonus was hearing Ben’s bells ring on the hour as we started our walking tour, crossing Westminster Bridge. You also get a great view back to the clock and the Houses of Parliament from that bridge. On the other side of the Thames, we stopped to take a couple of photos before continuing alongside the river on the Queens Walk.

Oh, and the fine day we were forecast hadn’t yet eventuated, so we were in need of our jackets once again. It wasn’t raining, but a cool wind was blowing. We crossed back over the Thames via Waterloo Bridge, heading for Covent Garden. We know so little about London, we assumed it was a garden—but it looked more like a market to us. Anyway, we ticked that off and continued walking to The National Gallery and Trafalgar Square.

We didn’t intend to visit the gallery, just to see the outside and visit the square. Visiting the square properly wasn’t an option today, as it was completely fenced off for a Junior NBA 3-on-3 basketball competition. So, we had to be satisfied with viewing Nelson’s Column from over the fence. Yes, we are now officially Peeping Toms—but we didn’t get arrested. 😂

We continued our walking tour into The Mall—pronounced like "mallet" without the "let." Why the English pronounce it like that, I have no idea. Probably to confuse the French—and the tourists. The Mall is where the King's Guards begin their march from the St. James’s Barracks to Buckingham Palace, and we figured that would be a good place to get a front-row view as they passed. Once at the spot we thought was good, we saw an even better spot across the road by the Queen Victoria Memorial. Relocating was fairly easy, so we adapted the plan.

We had decided we didn’t want to try to get to the Palace early for a front-row view of the actual changing ceremony. That would have meant too much standing around doing nothing. Our plan worked out okay—we got to see the horses and some guards up close, and the rest of the ceremony from afar, over the heads of the thousands of others who were there. The whole thing was a bit boring, to be honest—but hey, when in Rome, you do these things. 😉

That English and tourist pastime ticked off, we left the crowds behind and headed back to see Ben again via Westminster Abbey. We had been enjoying glorious English sunshine for the last hour or so, which was very nice. The Abbey costs quite a bit to go inside, so we satisfied our curiosity with a look at the architecture from the outside. It was quite impressive, though Sarah did comment that it wasn’t as great as the Cambodian temples we visited earlier this year. She’s a tough judge, as I’m sure you’ll all quietly agree. 😘

Our city tour loop ended back at Big Ben, and we considered continuing the tourist activities into the afternoon. I wasn’t too keen, my feet were killing me, and I was getting a bit hungry. Sarah wanted to save the cost of another return train ride, but she relented to my idea of chilling out (and eating) back at home base.

On the way back, we reversed our journey and grabbed some milk and bread at Ealing Broadway before the walk home. I had been tracking the loop walk on Strava which was 7km — we therefore walked over 10km this morning. No wonder my feet were hurting! We decided to eat the leftover Turkish food for lunch and will have a light dinner—or maybe another pint at the pub? Or both?

Just after 6pm we headed to our "local" pub for a pint and a cider. Thanks again to Karl and Jacqui for the shout. 👍 Being Friday evening the place was doing a very good trade but we found a table and enjoyed our drinks. On the way home from the pub we detoured to find a geocache - which we actually found this time. For dinner tonight we are just having some chips, I mean crisps, from the Co-op and enjoying watching Season 4 Episode 1 of Clarkson's Farm.