Thursday started out even earlier than Day 2, I woke up around 5ish, watched some TV and then headed down for breakfast when it was (finally!) open. We proceeded out into a bright(er) and sun(nier) London at 8AM and headed over to the neighbouring British Museum. There, we were told by a friendly guard that neither the courtyard or the museum was open yet! At this point, we stood around outside because we weren’t sure what to do. We had seen most of what we wanted to do, and still had a day left; I pulled out the map and looked at what attractions we hadn’t been to yet.

We took the tube to St James Palace to see what the heck it was. It was a palace, but an old one at that. It didn’t look very decorated but there were the standard 2 guards out front. We stopped to look at the map once there and the guards did their little click-clack gun thing for apparently no reason, but I guess it was for the tourists’ (meaning us) benefit. Why else would they do that at 8:30 in the morning with no one around? We walked around the building and proceeded south to destinations unknown.

Wandering around, we found the where the Royal Society calls home, what I thought was The Admiralty (but no longer sure), and the Horse Guards building (with an open area for horses). This place was neat since it was early in the morning and there were hardly any people around, it was almost sunny, and a wide open space. I tried doing a panorama but moving clouds and random suckiness made it not turn out well. We then came across the Banqueting House at Whitehall which was only remaining portion of the first Royal Palace (the rest was destroyed in a fire), and Downing Street (where the Prime Minster resides). We were unable to enter either of the two, the former because it was reserved for a private event, and the latter because there was security.

After that, we headed back to Harrods because Jeb had to buy some stuff. Unfortunately it was only 9:30, so we stopped off at Cafe Rouge for some rest and a second breakfast. I tried the Crêpe aux Champignions which was an interesting mixture of tastes. Upon arriving at Harrods, we found out that the food hall opened at 9 so we could have showed up earlier!

Next, we headed to Buckingham Palace again. The purpose of this trip however was to see the Changing of the Guard. We walked past a variety of embassies, past the Palace walls, the Royal Mews, the Queen’s Gallery, and found a place at the gates. We arrived a bit after 11AM for an 11:30AM start, but it was already packed! We had good spots for our section, but we we were a bit far from the action. The Changing of the Guard itself took a long time and was mostly boring; a lot of stomping, pacing, and a cameo by the Brazillian State visit. Following this, we stopped off briefly at the Queen’s Gallery (no pictures!), then walked to Victoria Station.

We took the tube up to Nottinghill Gate Station and made our way to Portobello Road. Portobello road was supposed to be an ecelectic market of sorts, but a fair amount of it was closed, and it had started raining again (hey at least it didn’t rain during the Changing of the Guard!). In fact the market was difficult to find and we seemed to be walking in some random directions before we came upon it. Along the way however, we walked past George Orwell’s former residence.

We took the bus towards Marble Arch, but accidently got off too early and ended up in Arabtown! Not a big deal though, we quickly found Oxford Street and continued on our way. Oxford Street is I guess like Bloor street, with lots of high end and brand name stores. While the exchange rate was actually pretty good, $2CDN = £1, I didn’t end up buying anything. We also stopped off at Garfunkel’s for lunch (got the Fish & Chips).

We followed Oxford Street until Regent Street and then went south. Our destination was the Apple Store to use some internet (very few actually had working connection), and to avoid the oncoming rain. I also took in a seminar and learned about iDVD! After the rain had subsided, we continued south, found a backalley shopping area called Carnaby, and ended up at Picadilly Square. We then headed back to the hotel for some rest.

We headed out again at night to get some food. The decision was Covent Garden so that we could see what all the fuss was about (it said on the tube that this area was very busy during evenings and weekends). There actually wasn’t a lot of people there and all the shopping was closed anyways (things close early there in general, around 6ish? on weekdays). We found some random Italian restaurant (Ristorante Aurora) and I had some fusilli. We then went back to the hotel, packed, and got ready to head back to Toronto.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: diary, london, travelling