We left off with the war monuments. Well, after the group passed those by, we got to the good stuff: the Mall, which is the road leading to Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square!
First, we encountered these two fellas whose job seemed only to consist of sitting on horses, showing no emotion.
We then got to see the Admirality Arch and Admirality Building, both of which are at one end of the mall, with Buckingham Palace on the other.
One new display on the Mall is the statue of Queen Elizabeth, which was added to accompany the statue of her husband, King George VI. The statues are together in front of the street. I took many pictures of them along with the street in general to capture the look of it. My pictures are a sore substitute, though, of the decadence on display here.
While on the mall, I could not help myself; I had to take a few pictures of taxis!
After the Mall, we ventured off to another part of the City of Westminster, St. James Palace. Apparently, it is a private home of the royals: Prince Charles used to live there, as did Harry and William. It is shut off, but we did notice there was a small hole near the bottom of the thick gate. A few of us, including me, peered through and saw what looked to be a wedding. If you read about a wedding from June 28th in St. James Palace, I was there! (Kind of!)
Part of St. James Palace is St. James Park, which we passed on our way to Trafalgar Square.
The walk to Trafalgar Square was lengthy, but we did pass by a number of interesting shops and restaurants. I wonder if Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote the first picture's slogan?
In Trafalgar, there are, like most of London, lots of statues, monuments, and fancy restaurants. Here is the monument to Florence Nightengale. The restaurant called the Balcon should be familiar to Downton Abbey fans; I believe Michael the editor took Lady Edith there in one episode. :)
Trafalgar Square was INSANE today. Imagine the crowd one might encounter at a Carolina football game--one against an arch-rival like Clemson or Georgia--and multiply it several times. That might get you close to the numbers of people in the square. Conversely, there were also many streets with very few to no people. I pointed my camera up when I took pictures to avoid the tons of people standing in front of the buildings. I'm not sure my pictures really do the feel of the place justice, but here they are, nevertheless.
Go Gamecocks...in blue!
We soon left the square to avoid the (human) traffic and get to SoHo, which would lead us back to South Bend, location of the dorm.
I guess the Kotti family would fit in well here!
And here we are, back at the bridge. I could not resist taking a few more pictures from this beautiful spot. I kept getting frustrated because my camera--or any camera, for that matter--really could not capture the beauty of this perspective. It is majestic.
On the walk home, we passed by the National Theater. I took a few pictures. :)
Lastly, we passed by a few historic buildings attached to King's College.
All in all, this was an extremely rewarding tour, and I saw things I did not even know existed, let along places I would have visited. This was a fantastic start to sight-seeing in London. As for what tomorrow holds, well, you'll just have to wait and see.
Until next time....
~Laura
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