Day 4 - Long post

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Now that I'm better rested my spelling and ability to make coherent sentences is higher so I'll try this again! We did another 10K of walking yesterday so my tiredness is definitely earned!

Yesterday the weather report indicated that we had the lowest chance of rain of all the days we are here so we decided to make it our HoHo (Hop on/Hop off) bus tour day so we could sit in the open air section of the double decker bus. The bus stop for the tour is literally at the front of the hotel so after the obligatory stop at Starbucks (there is one at the tube stop just underneath our hotel), we hopped on the bus.

The first stop that caught our attention was the Natural History Museum. We got off there and wandered around the museum for a bit. We particularly enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit which was particularly well done. The building itself was spectacular - it was special purpose to house the museum so the architect built in little features into the walls and ceiling that aligned with the theme.

After that, we got back on the bus and took it just a stop or two to Kensington Palace. After a comforting pub lunch and a pint, we walked over to the Palace and did the three audio tours. One took us to the King's Chambers of William III, the first royal to live at the Palace. He and Queen Mary II, who ruled as joint monarchs, only lived in the Palace for 12 years as she died of smallpox four years after moving in and he died from a fall from a horse only 8 years after that. The palace then became the residence of Queen Anne, Mary's younger sister as they didn't have any surviving children. As Queen Anne also didn't have any surviving children, the Tudor reign ended when Queen Anne died at Kensington Palace and the Hanover line became the reigning branch of the family. This was where Queen Victoria grew up and lived until just after her 18th birthday when she was crowned Queen and moved to Buckingham Palace. That was the last time a reigning monarch lived in the castle although it is the official residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

After Kensington Palace, we got back on the bus and took it all the way to Covent Garden. We met up with Hannah and wandered around the market and small shops. It's a lot like Granville Island with the independent shops and small stalls. It wasn't too difficult to imagine what it might have looked like in the 1800s in all of the Regency novels I read as a teenager. We stopped for a cheese plate and some wine at one of the lower level shops and chatted for a bit before taking up our wandering. We noticed that there were people enjoying beverages at one of the highest points in the market and realized it was the opera house. We went up to the roof deck and had a lovely cocktail overlooking the market and the sunset.

After that, we left the market area and wandered around the neighborhood a bit. This is where many of the theatres are - it was impressive to see how many of them were running different Broadway-type shows. Hannah said that she and Felix can often get cheap same day tickets so they've seen many of the currently running ones. We found a cute Italian place for dinner and had a lovely dinner. Except the ceiling started leaking on Don - it was clear that they were going to have a lot of water damage by this morning by the time it could be resolved.

We walked Hannah over the theatre where Felix works and wandered around the Frozen gift shop. If anyone was hoping for Frozen merchandise such as a blue sparkly water bottle, you're out of luck - we didn't purchase anything. Don and I hopped in our cab and headed back to our hotel where we had the only major inconvenience of the trip so far. The laundry service we arranged to pick up our clothes didn't come. We only packed enough for 5-6 days so we were counting on it - I woke up early this morning to make alternative arrangements.

Today, we're off to the Tower of London. We don't have a plan after that so will do a bit of wandering around. There are a few things we've made note of as places to see if we have time. We'll see how long we stay at the Tower.

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Photos

Don and Hannah
Don and Hannah outside one of the shops in Covent Garden

Canadian Embassy
We drove by the Canadian Embassy in Trafalgar Square on the bus tour. It covers a full block of prime real estate.

Dippy the Dinosaur
This dino is a big deal there - it has it's own room and special tickets to get in to see it. It's tail was so long it reminded us of Shirley.

Don and Christine
This was outside the gates of Kensington Palace.