London--Day Three

Well, here's day three in London...a week later! It takes so much time to get these all on here and try to explain each one! Hope you enjoy them!

The St. James Garden (leading up to Buckingham Palace) is just beautiful. I can only imagine how great it must be in the summer, when all the flowers are in bloom!

One of Robb's favorite things is taking picutres of cool signs...I loved this one!

Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace...quite the ordeal, as you'll see in the following pictures. During the winter, they do the whole pomp and circumstance every other day, and in the summer, they do it EVERY DAY! I can't imagine! It was impossible to actually see the changing of the guard, but the whole parade, bands, etc. was pretty impressive!

This huge fountain is directly in front of the Buckingham Palace gates.

This next little set of pictures is just a few from many...one of our absolute favorite things we did in London was visit the Churchill Museum and War Rooms. These underground rooms were left almost exactly as they were when Churchill and his War Cabinet led WWII. They said that in 1944 (when England was officially "safe" from Hitler), the officers and Churchill walked out, turned off the lights, and it was left untouched until the 1970's, when it was turned into this museum...so fascinating. Literally, most of it has been left untouched. Being WWII history "buffs", we were so excited to see it! This first picture is the "Map" Room, a large conference style room with European maps everywhere.

Closer up, you can see the pins marking territories of the Nazis and the Allies.

It was very dim, and hard to get pictures, but this give you some idea of how it looked.

This was the communications room. All the telephones, etc. were left exactly as they were found.

Fun picture of Robb, with Big Ben in the background.

We used the Underground Metro most of the time...Mind the Gap!

This very cool Bentley was our other mode of transportation...in our dreams!

One of my favorite things about traveling is to find quaint antique shops and that's what I buy for a souvenir...forget the junky stuff! Mind you, antiques in Europe can be VERY pricey, but I found this great wooden tray here for just the right price!

If you have seen the movie "Notting Hill", this street (Portobello Market Road) is where the market is that Hugh Grant walked through. His "Travel Bookshop" really exists on this road! On Saturdays, this place is really hopping! Unfortunately, we were there Sunday-Tuesday!

Our hotel...very small indeed, but clean and neat...and inexpensive!

This VERY cool pub was a popular hangout of Charles Dickens. We got there too late to eat, but we sipped a Coke and imagined what it must have been like "back in the day!"

Big Ben

My favorite picture of London!

These are just a smattering of snapshots...hope you've enjoyed London! SO MANY MORE of Paris, but I need Robb to help me label them and make sure I've got all my history straight!

Paris...coming soon (I hope!)