Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is closed to visitors for the majority of the year. For eight weeks in the late summer they allow tours through the palace state rooms and have some kind of extra exhibit at the end of the tour. WE, and by that I mean me, really wanted to visit the palace while it was open. After walking around a bit through the park, feeding the overly friendly birds and having a snack, we toured the rooms.

The special exhibit this year was of the Queen's gowns throughout the years. It was interesting as they were gowns she had worn separated by countries she wore them in. So there was an African visit section and an Australian/New Zealand section. Amazingly enough I recognized a few pieces in the collection from textbook pictures I had seen as the pictures of her wearing the gowns were also displayed. After our tour we, and again I mean me, had some tea and scones at the palace. I mean really, how often do you get to have tea and scones at Buckingham Palace? I did share with the boys and Colton discovered he quite liked scones! Must have been the clotted cream!

After exiting the backside of the palace you get to walk through the grounds. It is kind of amazing really how huge it all is, and it's in the middle of an enormous city. I really liked the bench that Queen Victoria used to sit on during her walks around the grounds.

On the drive into London, Jackson noticed the London eye and really, really wanted to ride it. So we walked over to the eye from the Palace. Let's just say that we didn't take the most direct route, but we did get to walk by parliament and Westminster Abby on the way over. We also found the most unique sculpture made all out of umbrellas outside one of the tv station headquarters.

Jeff and I really enjoyed repeating over and over, "look kids Big Ben, parliament" at every opportunity but as the kids haven't seen European Vacation, the humor was lost on them! We did take some fantastic pictures along the way of everyone with Big Ben.









I like this picture of my favorite American tourists!



It always makes me laugh when I go to London to see the streets painted with directions on which way to look! Dangerous place for Americans.


We had fun on the London eye. It wasn't an attraction I was particularly keen to go on, but the boys were so excited. I have to admit the views were beautiful and we were lucky to have gorgeous weather. It was a 30 minute ride all the way around. To make it more interesting they had a few wax figures in the lobby to advertise for Madame Taussauds so we goofed off while Jeff bought tickets. They also had a pretty cool 3-D movie before the ride. We loved the picture we took of our Dolce/Gabanna boys in their haute coture glasses. Colton took it all in and remained happy during the wait in the queue. The ride moved very slowly but the views were pretty amazing. Even though the day was really clear, it was hazy from so far above.

After our ride we headed back to the palace to catch our bus. Our walk through St. James' park was really nice as most of the crowds had cleared out. I got these great shots of Jackson as he took a break on a parkbench. Connor was nice enough to give him a piggyback ride as we headed back to the bus.