We slept well, if briefly. After a decent breakfast we took the coach into London and met our local guide Mark. He showed use various sights around London including Gordon Ramsey's dock side restaurant, Richard Branson's digs, the tallest building in the UK (The Shard), and The Albert Memorial before we stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral and then walked towards Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. Luckily, we had a beautiful day to stroll through the park, admire the daffodils and pansies, and watched hoards of people watching the guards!
Our guides took us to Windsor for a quick lunch and a tour of Windsor Castle. The Royal Standard was flying but the Queen did not come out to see us. Surely she heard we were visiting. We looked at Queen Mary's Dollhouse - actually a 1:12 scale model of a palace. We walked through the State Apartments and saw royal bedroom, royal wardrobe, royal dressing room, royal dining rooms . . . And finally St. George's Hall which burned during the Queen's "annus horribilus." It really was spectacular. Then we walked through St. George's Chapel to see many royal tombs. Oops, almost forget, we saw wonderful displays of armor including one of Henry VIII which definitely showed that he was a BIG man.
We met back in the coach park around 4:00 to head back in to London, had a few moments in Leicestershire Square before walking to Soho for bangers and mash for dinner. We rushed through Picadilly, Trafalgar Square and across the Thames in time for our scheduled flight on The London Eye. Finally, we caught the Northern Line at Waterloo Station, transferred to the Circle Line at Tottenham Court Station and headed back to Newbury Park.
We had another long busy day but no one was grouch! We met Mr. Risi at the restaurant after his long circuitous trip from Vancouver.
Tomorrow we will be up early and planning to attend the 9:00 Mass at Westminster Cathedral before going to the Tower of London.
Ciao.
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