London in the Rain

Today forecasted rain in London. No worries, we had our raincoats that we had packed in case of rain in Iceland and Norway! It also turned out to be actually a good thing. We didn't realize until the next day, but a lot of tourists don't go out in the rain... so we had a bit more space on this rainy day. 😀

We took a friend's advice and took a boat down the river to Westminster today. This saved on A LOT of walking. We purchased a 2 day pass for only a few more pounds than the one day pass. We enjoy seeing the city from the water, so as well as transporting us to where we wanted to be it was interesting to look at all the stuff as we motored down the river! Here are a couple of photos of us in the boat. You can see two things: rain on the window and how few people felt the need to come out in the rain!

When we arrived in Westminster, we first walked around the parliament buildings which are also known as Westminster Palace. Steve was impressed to see they had a chapel just for him... but these guys didn't look like they wanted to let him in... go figure?!

For seven centuries St. Stephen's Chapel was at the central of political and religious life, but alas was destroyed in yet another "great fire" in 1834. St. Stephen's Hall is still the public entranceway into the parliament.

Next we took a little walk around the outside of Westminster Abbey... but again didn't go inside. Westminster Abbey is the location of most of the coronations of English monarchs as well as many weddings. William and Kate were married here in 2011. It is also the burial site of many kings and queens as well as other famous Brits (like Chaucer, Browning and Sir Isaac Newton).

It also costs about $47 CAD to get inside, so we decided to just admire it from the outside.

 Yep, still raining!

Next we made our way down to Buckingham Palace (we walked through a very nice park to get there... but I don't know what it was!)

Yep, still raining 😀

I thought that because the flag was flying that it meant King Charles was home. I politely asked him (from outside) if he could come outside for a visit... but he did not! Turns out he wasn't home. There are two different flags that fly. When the Union Jack is flying he isn't home, but when the Royal Standard is flying he is. You guessed it... it was the Union Jack. So I've forgiven him for ignoring me!

Beside Buckingham Palace is quite a large park called the Green Park. Here we are standing beside the "Canada Gate". It was quite large and pretty! It was commissioned in 1905 and completed in 1911. It was intended to be a gift from Canada as part of a memorial to Queen Victoria who died in 1901.

Look how big it is!

Here's another look back at Buckingham Palace.

At this point we were getting hungry and decided to hunt down a pub for lunch. You need to go to a pub in London right? We found this beauty close to Trafalgar Square that wasn't cheap... but made up for it in ambience and the tastiness of the food!

Look at this awesome table Steve found us!

This next photo isn't somewhere we went inside, but I have to share it because look how beautiful it is!!

Did you know that many of the world class museums in London are free?! This blows my mind! I googled best free museums in London and the first result is the "Best 25 free museums in London". I do not know anywhere else in the world where you can go to at least 25 free museums. When we return to London... and we will... we will definitely be crossing more of those museums off our list.

Today we decided to visit the National Gallery because we both love paintings and it was conveniently close to where we wanted to end up for our show tonight. 

The National Gallery has more than 2000 paintings from the middle ages up to the 20th century. 

We did NOT see them all. They even had some Caravaggios... which are one of my current favourites! We didn't take a lot of photos because we were busy looking at the paintings... but this is one of my favourites. Imagine the time and attention to detail it took to paint a painting with all these other tiny paintings in it?!

Steve and I area also both always amazed at the size of some of these paintings. How long would it take someone to complete a masterpiece like this?

It's definitely going to be one of my projects when I retire to learn more about art so I can appreciate it even more 💖

Finally, we headed over to the Duchess Theatre to watch "The Play that Goes Wrong".

I think this was on of the funniest things I have ever seen! The whole premise is that they are doing a play and everything goes wrong. We were both laughing throughout the whole thing. I highly recommend it if you are in London. It was a small theatre and we had the seats at the very back in the "box". It was still an excellent view of the stage, and I liked having a bit more space. The tickets were only 20 pounds each... which I think was a bargain!

This is how the stage looked before the play started.

And then... there were no photos allowed 😀 We were too busy enjoying ourselves to take photos anyway!

Another terrific day in London. We are looking forward to tomorrow when we have another show booked in the evening!