T and S: Londonton Abbey

In case you missed it:

We mailed some postcards (note the E II R towards the bottom of the drop box). Then headed to Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey doesn't allow photos inside so this is a photo from a Westminster Abbey courtyard with a view of the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster.

Westminster Abbey was really dark inside. Not just lighting-wise, but also because all the stones that make up the walls and floors are dark. Basically, Westminster felt like an indoor graveyard and a monument to men, not a church of God. It was kind of strange to feel that way about one of the most famous churches around. Westminster was nice, but I think it's one that can actually be skipped, especially for £16/person. I did like recognizing all the famous names in Poet's Corner, though. I thought it was interesting that some people are not buried there, but still have monuments there.

These statues of WWII soldiers were in the west cloister. They are part of the Combined Services Memorial honoring the men in the Submarine Service, the Commandos, and the Airborne Forces and Special Air Service.

I thought the most beautiful part of Westminster Abbey was King Henry VII's chapel. (This part was behind where Will and Kate's wedding took place). The ceiling of the chapel is very ornately carved and painted and the chapel as a while is pretty much the only part of Westminster that wasn't dark.

As you might recall, Westminster Abbey is where Will and Kate's wedding took place. I made Tyler walk slow with me down the aisle like I was Kate. It was wonderful. :) T is such a good sport!

Some interesting facts about Westminster Abbey: The last royal to be buried at Westminster was in the 1700's. Since then they have all been buried at Windsor. The last full body to be buried at Westminster was the unknown soldier from WWI (Kate laid her wedding bouquet on that grave as she left the chapel). Since then, every person buried at the Abbey has to be cremated because they just don't have enough space. The most recent burial was an Abbey priest in 2008.

We ate lunch at a cafe called Pickles then moseyed over to the Churchill War Rooms / Museum. The Churchill War Rooms were the secret underground headquarters where Churchill directed the war effort. Many of the rooms remain exactly as they were when they were abandoned at the end of the war in August 1945. The enitre War Rooms are quite large. I thought it was just a map room and a cabinet room, but it wasn't just military planning rooms. People who worked there (in the map room, or as secretaries, or any number of positions) actually slept and lived down there for days at a time.

The audio tour was good, but I felt like the museum was poorly laid out. There were so many handwritten memos on display and I'm sure they were interesting and historically important, but I really just couldn't read any of the handwriting and there weren't any typed captions accompanying them other than names and dates, so I skipped over most of them.

This is T in front of the door to the first secure transatlantic telephone line that gave Churchill a direct line to FDR. Almost no one working in the war rooms had any idea that the telephone line existed or was behind this door. Most people thought this door led to the only indoor bathroom in the war rooms and was always locked because it was only for the highest ranking officials.

I knew that London was bombed a lot during the Blitz, but I didn't really realize how constant and heavy it was until we visited the War Rooms and listened to some personal experiences. Several people talked about how when they would come out of the War Rooms at the end of their shift they would start walking home, only to realize that entire streets and neighborhoods were gone.

This is an enigma coding machine that the Nazis used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages.

In addition to the war rooms there was also a (relatively) small museum about Winston Churchill. I didn't know that between VE day and VJ day Churchill was voted out as Prime Minister. What a way to treat the guy who got you through the war! But six years later he was Prime Minister again.

These are a bunch of medals that Churchill won. That is a lot of brass for one chest.

My favorite thing about Winston Churchill was how much he loved his wife, Clementine. The first time Winston met her at a party he was literally speechless. The next time he met her (four years later!) he immediately asked her to dance and that was that. They had nicknames for each other (Cat and Pug) and would often sign letters to each other with just a drawing of a cat or pug. There were lots of other sweet things, and it just made me swoon a bit.

The door to Number 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's Residence, and Churchill's thoughts on being Prime Minister during WWII.

T with one of the maps in the map room. You can see some of the pins, but there were thousands of pin holes from tracking the movement of troops and supplies.

After the War Rooms we walked through St. James Park on our way to "Buck House" aka Buckingham Palace

The fountain in front of Buckingham Palace.

This is the best photo we have of us and Buckingham Palace. We thought we would go by it again on our way home and get a closer shot, but we ended up going a different route.

We actually went inside part of Buckingham Palace to the Royal Mews (the place where they keep the horses and carriages). We could have also seen the Queen's Gallery, which is rotating exhibits of art privately owned by the crown, but the exhibit was DaVinci's anatomy drawings which neither of us were very interested in. In July (so we obviously couldn't visit) the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace are open to the public (for a fee, of course).

This fancy car (I have no idea what kind; T: it's an Aston Martin) was parked at the Mews in the parking spot reserved for the doctor. We weren't sure if it was a horse doctor or a human doctor. Either way, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself.

The carriage that the Queen's ladies in waiting rode in on their way to Parliament the day before.

One of two of the Queen's Rolls Royces

The Australian carriage that the Queen rode to Parliament in.

I really wanted to see the State Landau that William and Kate rode in after their wedding but it was at Windsor for a horse show. Bummer.

These little carriages were used for the amusement of the royal children.

The Gold State Coach is HUGE. And impressive. It has been used for every coronation since George IV's.

The carriage weighs four tons and the back wheel is a bit taller than me.

Apparently, though, it is also a very bumpy ride. A prince from back in the day who was also a Navy Admiral said that riding in that carriage was worse than any storm he had ever been in at sea.

The Glass Carriage that Princess Di rode in for her wedding.

The aerial view of Buckingham Palace. The road right down the center of the photo is Britian's "Mall." The Royal Mews is the building off to the bottom right of the palace, with the trees in the courtyard.

After the Royal Mews we headed to Harrod's for dinner because we heard they had an American Diner restaurant in the store. It was a crazy walk and I got so turned around, but thankfully T has more iron boogers than me (inside joke) and got us there. Harrod's is like the NYC Macy's but more everything (more expensive, opulent, large, etc). We were so hungry when we arrived, but didn't eat at the restaurant because a hamburger and fries was £18! Ridiculous! We ended up buying stuff at the "food court" that we didn't know was cold.

On the tube ride home T's head got hit by the tube doors (that curve drastically at the top, because apparently British people are short) when they were closing, because the tube was so full. It hurt a lot. Back at the hotel we ended the night by watching a British show that was essentially zooborns on TV! They were so cute!