Coming from a country where the last king ever—Louis XVI—was executed by guillotine, I tend to see monarchy as somewhat obsolete and old-fashioned, although harmless if a Parliament is in place. We don’t hear that much about the Queen in Canada, and I’ve never been very interested in Royal Family gossip.
I still wanted to see Buckingham Palace though, as well as the area around it. Indeed, once you step on Constitution Hill, you feel like you enter another world. A high wall and barbwire protect the boundaries of the Palace and there seems to be CCTV cameras everywhere. Traffic lights have pedestrian-and-horse themed crossing lights. Cars are shiny and hordes of tourists are ready to press the shutter button as soon as they see a shadow moving inside the Palace.
Of course, you can’t step into Buckingham Palace. Besides, the Queen was in Ottawa when we were in London —awful timing, right? Yet, people get as close to the gates as they can, and take pictures of the guards instead.
Salut Zhu,
My,that brought back memories :)Everyone who visits London has to do Buckingham Palace. We were there for the changing of the guard,very typical,and just is typical is that I saw NOTHING of the guards. Wall to wall people even in December! Oh well…
Enjoy your trip & grosses bises xx
I managed to see the changing of guards during winter & summer time so that’s a different scene all together and you know with winter, the guards were in grey thicker coat.
Hmmm….so the Queen didn’t come out to chill huh 😉
Enjoy yourself Zhu, did you grab a deep-fried Mars bar?
I like the traffic light for horses LOL…
Great pictures Zhu. You are blessed with sunny weather. Of course when I visited London I went to see Buckingham Palace. I enjoyed more traditional London weather, t was pouring down rain. I have a damp photo of the palace taken over a colorful group of school children all dressed in shiny rain ponchos. They seemed to regard the rain as normal.
I did not notice the horse crossing lights when I was there! How funny. I tried to go see the changing of the guard and decided it was the worst waste of time ever. It starts at 11:30 so your entire morning is spoiled because it’s such a weird time and you have to get there a little earlier if you want to see anything. Then after I got there they announced that it was canceled. I liked the park across the street though. We kicked out the monarchy years ago anyway, so it wasn’t such a big deal.
You got lucky with the weather there! Here in the US, we just had a heat wave!
I thought you could at least visit part of the castle, I guess that it’s better to behead your queens and kings so that you have access to all these beautiful buildings 🙂
@barbara – I think the Tower of London is actually the best place to see the guards, or so I’ve heard. I didn’t really try at Buckingham.
@shionge – Nope, not even a deep-fried pizza! I stick with Indian food 😆
@khengsiong – Cool, isn’t it?
@Tulsa Gentleman – It didn’t rain a drop in London so yes, we were definitely lucky. Everything looks better with good weather and under the sun, even people are friendlier!
@Soleil – Yes, I kind of had the idea for the guards. Although because we went early July, we were a bit ahead of the crowd, which made everything easier.
@Linguist-in-Waiting – We had it too, but London is never so hot.
@Cynthia – I think you can but only in August when the Queen is in Scotland.
Indeed, Houses of Parliament is the mother of Parliaments.
While you’re in the UK, the Queen was in Canada. Otherwise, you should be able to her own flag, commonly known as the Royal Standard, flying at Buckingham Palace.
Walking along The Mall, you can notice a lot of statues associated to the sea, eg, lamp posts with ships, dolphins, James Cook, etc all to show off British navy power in the past.
Quand je suis allée à Londres en 2001 our 2002 ils avaient fait des améliorations aux intérieurs de Buckhingham Palace et on pouvait le visiter pendant 1 mois je crois. J’en ai profité pour aller en France à ce moment là et j’ai visité le palace – vraiment grandiose. On ne pouvait pas prendre de photo mais j’ai acheté un livre illustré. Il faudra que je fasse un post la-dessus. J’ai acheté de la crème à la lavande produit dans les terres de la reine cela sentait bon.
When I was there years ago when the IRA was still setting bombs their were guards out there where the tourists were. It was a little unsettling because if you looked at them they would look you right in the eye and glare.