Com­ing from a coun­try which exe­cuted Louis XVI, the last king, by guil­lo­tine, I tend to con­sider monar­chy a cus­tom 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 gos­sip about the Royal Family.

I still wanted to see Buck­ing­ham Palace though, as well as the whole 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 CCTV cam­eras seem to be every­where. Traf­fic lights have pedes­trian and horse 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 enter Buck­ing­ham Palace. Besides, the Queen was in Ottawa when we were in Lon­don — what a shame. Yet, peo­ple get as close to the get as they can and take pic­tures of the guards instead.

You can fol­low our trip to the U.K here on Flickr: United King­dom.

Ah, No Trespassing	Traf­fic Lights for Horses
Gate of Buck­ing­ham Palace	Front of Buck­ing­ham Palace

Buck­ing­ham Palace and the Guards

Admi­ralty Arch

Buck­ing­ham Palace Gates’ Lock	Buck­ing­ham Palace Gates’ Lock
Buck­ing­ham Palace Gates	Try­ing to Take Pictures…
Buck­ing­ham Palace’ Fountain	Gate to the Mall Walk

Buck­ing­ham Palace

Towards the Mall Walk

Related arti­cles:

1. Gar­dens of Versailles
2. The Sum­mer Palace (颐和园)
3. The For­bid­den City (故宫)
4. Old Bei­jing (老北京)
5. The Lon­don Eye