Day 20 - London Blitz

I kept thinking of Charles Dickens' famous novel starter on our first full day in London, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."  There is SO much to see and do in this city but we have such limited time here.   There's no possible way to give London it's due. We would have to resort to a sampling of all this city has to offer in hope that we will return again someday for a more fulsome exploration.

Despite Gail having visited London with Kat a few years ago, we determined that the best way to get the lay of the land and see many of the London landmarks was to sign up for one of the hop-on, hop-off (HOHO) tour buses that would give us the sampling we were looking for and save wear and tear on the feet.  So off we went first thing on Tuesday morning.  Perched on the upper-deck of the open air bus, we had good views and benefited from an ongoing commentary from a tour guide. Within a couple of hours we had seen dozens of landmarks including Harrods, Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, Buckingham Palace and Tower of London not to mention several historic monuments and statues. It all went by pretty quickly as the bus lurched along and I tried to take photos. It was exciting to see the London icons, but I wanted to hop off the bus at every corner and absorb the moment and appreciate what I was seeing more fully. Sadly there was no time for that. We were  in "drinking from the firehouse" mode not savoring fine wine.

We did immerse ourselves in one British tradition -- the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  On the advice of our tour guide, we hopped off the bus and joined a sea of humanity lining the streets and gated walls of the Palace. We made our way to a statuary island slightly elevated above the street and there jostled for position as the Queen's regiment in full military regalia processed up the thoroughfare drums pounding out a purposeful cadence.  We watched as they marched through the Palace gates and went through the ceremony marking transition between the unit going off-duty to the unit coming on duty. It was hard to see all the activity due to the size of the crowd but it was exciting to witness the pomp and circumstance of the event.  Ceremonies such as this help make up  the fabric of a society's culture and provide structure and continuity to its people.

Pictures of the day will be posted soon.

John

Let me just add a bit about the changing of the guard deal. The crowd was so huge, I could understand why people get stampeded at such events. I was almost pushed over a few times and was ever so happy to get out of the teeming crowd. Not for the timid. --Gail