Today was the last ride for Scott out to Windsor as we would not be in London on a Sunday morning anymore. Luckily, it was sunny and warm and was a beautiful ride. Then he quickly got home and got changed and we headed down to Buckingham Palace for 2:45 appointment. Because Buckingham is only open to the public for about 2 months in the summer while the queen is in Scotland, it is quite busy and they set times for people to enter. Given that it closed at 5, we did not have a lot of time. We got tickets to see the Palace State Rooms, the Queens Gallery & the Royal Mews. Unfortunately, we only made it to 2 of the 3. We drove into the city and this time, it was not as easy as there was construction. We finally decided to park and take the Tube one stop to Buckingham Palace. Of course Scott’s good weather in the morning turned into not so great weather in the afternoon and it was raining for a good part of our walk to the palace. The rain had also brought the cold so it was not a fun walk. Finally we arrived and were greeted by a security guard with an American accent. She was from Boston. We went to the Gallery first. We saw a lot of artwork acquired by various royals throughout the years. It was really amazing. They even had a few Rembrandts. It really is amazing the amount of wealth the royal family has.
Next, we went to the state rooms. We got an audio guide that was for kids, since the adult guide was at a different speed. So the whole family was guided through Buckingham by Rachel and Charles. We got to see the rooms where the Queen holds official visits (just in case we aren’t ever invited by the queen herself we thought we should take a look). We saw where Prince William and Kate had their wedding pictures. But the part the girls were most excited for was the dress. Kate’s dress was on display. It was so funny. In the gallery where it was on display, there were two screens showing the seamstress who designed the dress. She was going into a detailed account of every section of the dress. (Scott would argue that it rivals this blog!) What amazed me was the amount of people that were sitting there captivated by this – women and men. Then we got to see the video of the royal wedding. The girls started to stop to watch and I reminded them that it was probably still on our Tivo at home. Then we turned the corner and there it was. It is very pretty. I think there were more people watching the video than looking at the dress. We also got to see her shoes and the royal cake – I guess they aren’t freezing the top part and eating it on their first anniversary. That marked the end of the tour. We did go and color and design wedding dresses in the family activity room. Then it was back outside, in the cold, but at least the rain had stopped. On our way out, we got our tickets stamped so that we could return for up to a year. Since we are still here for a few more weeks, I figure we might make it back down to see the Royal Mews. We actually haven’t seen the changing of the guard either so we can do both at the end of the month.
Then we headed back home. We were early enough that dinner was still being served at the New Inn so we stopped for some dinner there and then home to bed.
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