August 5, 2011–London

We got up early this morning to take a 7:30am guided tour.   It is beautiful, sunny and warm.  They drove around town picking people up from various locations in a double decker bus, and then transferred us to regular tour bus at a central location where lots of tour busses and tourists gather.   Mark, our dapper guide, talked about the Royals and London as we rode to Windsor Castle, arriving about 9:30am.  We were given head phones, and off we went to explore the Castle.  We could take pictures of the outside, but not the inside.  The outside pictures don’t do it justice, as it is so large and sprawling.  We saw Queen Mary’s  three story tall doll house complete with electricity and running water.  It is immense, 8 feet by 5 feet with real books, miniature oil paintings and dolls, etc.  The Castle and grounds were great.   This is the royal families favorite location, and they spend every weekend here, except when they are on vacation.  The moat was filled in and is now a beautiful flower garden.

We rode back into town for lunch on our own, before the 2pm start of Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace is clearly in the city and has a a much busier feel.   This is where the royal family live and handle most of their formal work.   We saw many of the public rooms filled with art and beautiful furnishings and special displays of the Faberge’ collection and THE DRESS, shoes, and earrings.  A streaming video gives all of the details of the design and making of Kate’s wedding gown.  It is spectacular.  It is lucky that we are here now, the Palace is only open for a few weeks during the summer when the royal family is away in Scotland. 

 

We finished touring the Palace about 3:45pm, and were back on our own.  We had dinner a popular local pub filled with folks enjoying their pints, even out into the street and finished in time for our 7:00 pm Harry Potter Walking Tour.  There were close to thirty Harry enthusiasts in our group, all ages and many nationalities.  We saw the alley that inspired Daigon Alley (photo) two different sites used for the Leaky Cauldron (photo), the bridge that was destroyed by the deatheaters, the Tower Bridge that Harry flew by on a broom (photo), a couple of other sites before we finished the tour with a stop at Platform 9 3/4 (photo).    It was a great tour, and we saw parts of London we never would have seen otherwise and walked for two and a half hours.  Interestingly we have not seen Harry Potter items in shops, lots of Will and Kate doo dads though.

We finally got back to our room at about  10:15pm.   Yesterday we logged over 5 1/2 miles of walking and today, over 7 1/2 miles.   Nancy has decided I am trying to kill her.   Although she did try to have me crushed by a tube door.  The final event of the day was climbing the windy stairs, 4 stories, to our humble abode and sleep!