Day 4 – 19 April Tuesday

Another 7.30am breakfast then another walk through the Marble Arch & Hyde Park, with all the cyclists & runners on the way to work.  Today Buckingham Palace was very quite without a Guard changing ceremony.  We took another path through Green Park & St James Park before arriving at Westminster Abbey at 9.45am, with a queue that was only about twenty minutes long.  The Abbey was founded in AD 960 & William the Conqueror was crowned here in 1066 – extraordinary age compared to anything in Australia (antique in Australia is just old compared to things here).  This is a magnificent example of medieval architecture on a grand scale, it really is big & so elaborate, however, it is full of dead people.  It is the burial place of a lot of rich & famous people from over the centuries, which detracts from the ambience.  We finished at the Abbey around 12.30pm & walked up to Trafalgar Square to find the Evans & Evans Tour we wanted to go on next – we got there with two minutes to spare.

Onto the bus & off to St Paul’s Cathedral, past the banking centre of London (there are 520 banking institutions in just 1 square mile) & past the site where the great fire of London was started in a Bakery in 1666.  I’m glad I’m not trying to drive a bus through the very narrow & windy streets of London.  St Paul’s Cathedral is even more impressive than Westminster, the dome is truly impressive.  Inside it’s very elaborate, ornate with magnificent mosaic pictures. The dome is very impressive from inside & underneath, only St. Peter’s in Rome is larger.  Thankfully, most of the people are buried in the crypt under the Cathedral so you don’t get the same crowded memorials to the rich & famous dead as you do at Westminster.  The Royals tend to marry at Westminster with most of their dead ancestors present, Prince Charles & Dianne married at St Pauls (maybe that’s why it was so ill fated).

Next, off to the Tower of London & another really old set of stone buildings, started around 1078 for William the Conqueror with the added bonus of seeing the Crown Jewels.  This is really interesting with all of the history associated with the Tower.  The Crown Jewels are worth seeing, all of the elaborate & heavily jewelled objects from past & present history, with the quantity of gemstones used it’s mind boggling, one crown had more than 12,000 diamonds encrusted in it.  An added bonus is the view of the Tower Bridge, this is one of the best looking bridges around, with two tall towers on either side of a lift span.  Then it was down to the Tower Pier to catch the last Thames River ferry back to Westminster, a lovely treat to see all the old building from the river glimmer in the setting sun.  The walk back up through the parks was lovely even though we were dead tired.  It was truly a warm day and the night was balmy & an unusual site for us Aussies (where we take our wonderful weather for granted) to see so very many people out in the park picnicking & just enjoying themselves.  Eventually back at the Hotel by 9pm.  We were SO VERY TIRED & had a long hot bath to ease the sore leg muscles.