London: Day 3

We got a kind of a slow start this morning and even decided to eat breakfast in our room (for no extra charge), so we could take our time in getting ready. Our legs and feet are starting to show a bit of wear from all the walking (and mainly stairs). Today we logged 16,100 steps! With all that walking, we visited Westminster Abbey, the Churchill War Rooms, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, and the British Museum. Here are our thoughts from today:

The north entrance

• Westminster Abbey is gorgeous and a little overwhelming. Unlike St. Paul's, there are statues and plaques everywhere in the church. (Sorry, no inside pictures). To us, it seemed less like a church and more like a memorial to the dead or crypt. Of course, this is the place where all the who's who of the kingdom and monarchy is buried. We saw graves and memorials to Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Tudor, and Mary Queen of Scots. We also got to visit the notable Poet's Corner, where many famous literary contributors are either buried or memorialized. I think my favorite part of Westminster Abbey was Henry VII's Lady Chapel; it was light and airy with beautiful stained glass windows, and this is where you found the bodies of the monarchs. As we were going through the abbey today, there were many workers installing new floral arrangements around the building, and it inspired the 11am "gifts" prayer praising the talents of others. After touring the main sanctuary, we got a chance to amble through the cloisters and other parts of the abbey.

Some spots of the Abbey where you were allowed pictures

• Our next stop was the Churchill War Rooms. The underground exhibit was housed in the bunkers below London where Churchill and his staff ran their operations during the world war. The rooms ranged from the large conference and map room to the tiny dormitories for those on watch. We learned about the dedicated phone line Churchill had installed to the president of the US and got to see many of the rooms reconstructed from photos to look just as they did during the day. It was an interesting glimpse into Britain's war time past.
  
  

From there we ambled around St. James Park as we headed towards Buckingham Palace. I have to save the British green spaces scattered around the city is one of my favorite things. There's even a little park across the street from our hotel. St. James Park was beautifully landscaped, and people were out in full force to gather up their daily dose of vitamin D.

• We did make a quick stop at Buckingham Palace today, although not to see the changing of the guards. The palace's imposing presence definitely set the tone as a mighty symbol of the UK. We stood up on the Victoria Monument to get the best view of the palace as a whole, plus the reverse view down The Mall is just as spectacular.

• Our last stop of the day was the British Museum, and on the way, we finally got lost in London. Coming out of the Tottenham Court tube station things were crazily under construction, and we just got all kinds of turned around. When we finally found the museum, we were pretty tired to say the least, but we powered through so we could see its treasure. Of course, our first stop was the Rosetta stone and the Egyptian, Greek, and early civilization exhibits. To think that all of these items were carved from stone or marble using just basic tools is amazing. The sheer size and weight of some of these items is what made them majestic. We visited the Parthenon friezes, and then made our way up to see the mummies and other artifacts. There are so many different rooms and displays at the British Museum that you really could spend a whole day there, but I think we were pretty satisfied by the highlights that we hit.

• And just in case you were wondering, Emma's having a nice vacation of her own at home with Mimi. She's gotten a whole new set of toys to play with by being at her mimi's house, and she's even gotten the luxurious privilege of watching TV in bed!