Monday, May 6: This was a beautiful day and was the spring bank holiday. After spending some time in the hotel garden and determining that the weather was warm, we set out without coats to take a couple of the walks in the Rick Steves guide book. We walked up the Strand and Fleet St, seeing the Cenotaph covered in scaffolding, #10 Downing St, the Banqueting House (where Charles I met his end), the Horse Guards, and Trafalgar Square. Then up Fleet Street and saw Somerset House/Courtauld Gallery (didn't go in), churches, and "Prince Henry's Room". The door under Prince Henry's Room to access the Temple was locked, necessitating a circuitous route to reach the Temple Church, which it turned out was closed all week.
Tuesday, May 7: The weather forecast was for the low 70s so we thought we'd go to the Victoria & Albert Museum and then stroll across Kensington Gardens and maybe Hyde Park. As it turned out, we spent most of the day in the museum. Carole was thrilled to see the famous Ardabil carpet. We had a light lunch in the museum cafe before going to the special exhibit of "Treasures of the Royal Courts/Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars". We never finished the Rick Steves tour of the museum and left after four o'clock. When we arrived at the hotel, having first gone to a drug store, it was after five so we went straight to the hotel bar and had a pair of martinis. At about seven we went to dinner at the nearby Little French Restaurant where we finished off a whole bottle of wine. We really liked the restaurant at the price.
Wednesday, May 8: It was rainy so we decided to do something indoors and headed to Westminster Abbey. On exiting the tube station we were faced with a mob of people and blocked streets. We learned that the Queen was coming to open Parliament. The band of (we later learned from a BBC video) the Welsh Guards, horses, carriages, and big, black cars. Below are two short video clips of the procession. In the background is Parliament Square.
After the Queen had passed we followed the mob through a "subway" across Whitechapel and then around to the Abbey. The procession had created an hour-long backlog of tourists who wanted to get into the Abbey, so the entrance queue was long. No photography permitted inside the Abbey, of course.
Next, as planned we went to finish our tour of the British Museum. We followed Rick Steves through the Assyrian exhibit and the Elgin Marbles. After that we went to see the Lindow Man but the Sutton Hoo exhibit was closed. We bought tin Egyptian sarcophagi filled with candy (for Cole & Nicky) or colored pencils (for Tony).
Thursday, May 9: Rain was forecast for midday so we went early to the Churchill War Rooms. We arrived at 9:40, about ten minutes after opening. The audio guide is a necessity and it was well done. The rooms were well worth visiting.
We got out shortly before eleven and realized we could get over to Buckingham Palace while the Changing of the Guard was still in progress. There were thousands of tourists out front; getting to the Palace fence was out of the question but we did worm our way to the front of the crowd around the traffic circle, where I got some video of redcoats returning to barracks. It had been sunny when we set out toward the palace, but as we waited clouds rolled in and when we left it was raining.
Friday, May 10: It started out a pretty but chilly day with low probability of rain. Because it was chilly we decided to do something indoorsy again, so we went to the National Gallery and the British Library. At the National Gallery there were hordes of school groups, lots of paintings, and no sculpture. Trafalgar Square was occupied by some kind of basketball exhibition sponsored by Turkish Airlines. Weird. They had some girls pretending unskillfully to be cheerleaders. At the British Library we saw the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, illuminated manuscripts, and Da Vinci notebooks. On our way home we noticed for the first time a TARDIS parked outside the Earl's Court station.
