Arrived in London right on time. My Delta plus seat was well worth the extra $100, however I wish I had not chosen the exit row. I had extra leg room even for the plus seats but the tray came from the seat so it wasn’t as wide which made less room to change positions. I didn’t sleep much but watched some good movies so the time went quick enough.

We had planned to take the $30 subway into our hotel. It would have been fairly easy our stop was on the same line and we would not even had to change subways. However, remember I bragged about my big suitcase and carry on bag, well they didn’t roll so well and neither did Val’s. After we had struggled with them at the airport we decided just to take a cab, $100 later we arrived at our hotel.

The hotel, The Kingsway Hall, is pretty much in the center of London not to far from Convent Garderns and all the theaters. We arrived by 8:30 dropped off our luggage and went out to explore. It was a cloudy almost raining morning so I grabbed a sweater, rain jacket and scarf not sure what I would need. I lost the scarf within the first few minutes, which I had just bought for the trip, and never really needed the sweater or jacket. Of course people were bundled up head to toe but to me it was so nice to be a little cool so my t-shirt was enough.

We were a little early for anything to be opened. We walked to Covent Gardens. All the vendors were setting up but nothing was opened. I discovered my missing scarf so we retraced our steps trying to find it. We were almost back to the hotel and I was ready to give up when surprisingly I found it. Someone had obviously found it first because it was on a little fence that separated a cafe’s tables from the sidewalk. The day was getting better.

Our room was going to be ready at 10:30 so we wanted to hang around to drop off some of what we didn’t want to leave in the hotel storage. We decided to get a snack for breakfast and ended up back at Covent Garden before we found something open on Sunday morning. After our French breakfast of crossiants the market was starting to open. We shopped a little, at first glance some of it looked like a bad craft fair but there was actually some that had nice things. We didn’t buy anything but noted a few items we would come back if we found ourselves lacking in purchases at the end of our trip. We stay at the same hotel a few days when we return to London next week.

After returning to the hotel again our room was ready and we got all situated for our first day of site seeing. I left the scarf and sweater behind this time. Off to Buckingham Palace.

Never never use the convent Garden tube stop. It was 193 steps down a spiral staircase to the tracks. I was happy we learned this on our way out instead of the return trip. The Holbon station has escalators so a much better option. Anyway onto the palace.

First stop was the Queen’s Gallery. The gallery displays a changing exhibit from the queen’s 9000 art options. This years was an exhibit of Canoletti and other Venice artists. King George of losing America fame purchased the collection of an English art dealer who worked primarily in Venice. It was a nice collection but we buzzed through pretty quickly.

From there we headed to the Mews to see the carriages. As an added unexpected bonus we got to see a few of the horses. The Mews are actually the working stable and they keep all of the horses there when the queen is in town. Surprisingly they exercise them every morning in Hyde Park. Not sure where I thought they would run them but just out through the park seemed odd. Another odd fact they use grey horses (actually they look more white) to pull the queen everyone else gets the brown horses.

There were several carriages including the one Katherine rode to here wedding in and the gold only very special events like coronation coach. It was over the top gilded in real gold. It was housed in one of the old stables and it takes 2 days and a crane to get it out. The crane is to remove a window the carriage is pushed by hand.

We had a bit of time to kill before are Palace tickets were good so we finally grabbed a bite. We just picked up a baguette with cheese and tomatoes and sat on a bench. It was delicious if only our baguettes were that good. Then again I do not need to eat that much bread.

The Palace was not as busy as I expected being the last day which was good. It was not as elaborately decorated as I expected. Of course when you have to rope off most of the room for a walkway i guess it is hard to decorate. You do get to go through rooms you see all the time. The throne room is where all the wedding photos are taken and it opens up to the balcony that fronts the crowd. You also go through the room where the queen has receptions which you would recognize from photos. The state dining room without the huge table does not look large enough to hold the 150 people but they say it does it easily. We also saw the Palace gallery which is currently showing the Queen’s Vermeer, The Music Lesson, which was an added bonus.

Also on display this year were the gifts the Queen has received over the years. We saw the yellow rose bowl that Bush Jr gave her along with a lot of other crazy objects. Also on display were a few of Diana’s things. They had here writing desk set up as she had it with a leather photo collage frame of her kids. It looked like anybody’s desk nothing was over the top fancy except for a Tiffany silver calendar the Reagan’s gave her. She also had a breifcase like box of cassettes she had when she married. We forget she was part of the mix tape generation. It doesn’t seem that she was young in the 80s.

By the time we finished the Palace our feet were killing us and we were really dragging. We were not far from the War Room museum and I really wanted to do it but my feet just wouldn’t make it. We headed back to the hotel and remembered not to use the Covent Garden station had I had to climb those stairs I think I would have cried.

We ate not too far from the hotel and called it a night. Lights were out and I was asleep by 7:30. Overall a great first day in London.