Cheers Old Chap - London Day 2

On Day 2 in London we switched from the history of Britain in general to the history of some very specific British people: the British Royal Family. Buckingham Palace is only open for tours at certain times of the year. Since May is not one of those times, we had to settle for Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace and the places were the past royals were all married. 

Our first stop of the day was Windsor Castle. This is not located in downtown London, so to get there, you need to take the the tube slightly out of town. By train: To Windsor from London Waterloo or London Paddington stations. The Paddington train requires a change of train at Slough where you catch the shuttle service down the branch line to Windsor. The journey takes about 40 mins. We naturally gave ourselves an hour and a half to get there to allow ourselves plenty of time to get lost. We also always like to get to things when they first open in the mornings to minimize crowds. Fortunately for us, nothing was crowded in London in mid-May. The weather was chilly but not unseasonably cold. With jeans, a t-shirt and a light jacket, we were good for most of the trip.

Our day at Windsor was lovely. When we arrived, we could see the flag flapping in the wind which meant the Queen was occupying the castle the day we were there. My favorite thing inside the castle was the massive dollhouse. This is a must see for any doll loving girls. If you take the regular tour of the castle, you don't miss it. 

The grounds outside of the castle were also extensive and lovely to walk. It gave you great views of the castle besides the walk up to the entrance. We also took a tour of St. Georges Chapel which resides on the property as well. This is where knighting services are performed and you can see the rooms where the knights congregate for official meetings. We stayed for the changing of the guard and then headed back to London for the afternoon. 

Walking up to Windsor Castle

After lunch, we gave ourselves a walking tour of some famous sights in London. We walked past Parliament and Big Ben on our way to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. Much of London seemed like it was under construction while we were there, so we found it difficult to get a ton of pictures. Here's a tip for you if you can't get good pictures of things: buy postcards! I'm an avid scrapbooker and love nothing more than to reminisce about my trips for weeks afterwards while I put my pictures into an album. In recent years I've gone completely electronic with my albums, but that doesn't change the fact that when I'm unable to capture a good picture of something, I buy a postcard of it, so that I can remember how it really looked. (Or in some cases, how it was supposed to look). Other times, postcards are great when photographs of certain things aren't permitted. Unlike France that allowed you to photograph everything, England prohibited photographs inside most places. Postcards are cheap and a great picturesque keepsake. 

I greatly enjoyed Westminster Abbey. It was neat seeing where so many royal coronations and weddings had taken place (though the most recent royal wedding of William and Kate was just a dream when we visited in 2009). From seeing where the royals wed, we went to Kensington Palace, where many royals past, present, and future call home. 

Westminster Abbey - cloudy skies and bad camera angles made me glad for postcards of this beautiful church

While I enjoyed seeing Kensington Palace, I was also slightly disappointed by it. I clearly didn't expect to be able to have a guided tour through the currently royals' living quarters, but I was hoping for something of a representation of their living quarters. Instead, they had 2 museum-like exhibits set up in the basement of the palace, and we weren't permitted access anywhere else. I don't know if this exhibit is still on display, but what drew me there in the first place was an exhibit of Princess Diana's dresses. 

Before that, however, you had to go through an exhibit of the last debutant ball held by the queen. It was a strange but rather interesting exhibit, though my husband found it horribly boring. The debutant life is reserved only for the upper crust of society in the United States but in England, it was something of a social frenzy. It was neat to see the pictures and footage of the preparations the girls went through prior to the ball. I can't say we would have gone through an exhibit like this on our own, but since it was connected to the Diana dress exhibit, we saw it anyway. I loved seeing Diana's dresses. They were stunning, creative, and a fashion blast from the past. Beside many of the dresses, they had photographs of footage reels of Diana wearing them during her life. The best part is that they allowed picture-taking.

Just one display of Princess Diana's famous dresses with a movie reel in the background

After Kensington Palace we made our way to London's West End (aka the theater district). In addition to being a huge history buff, I am also a theater lover. Some of the happiest moments of my life are those I have spent on the stage acting, singing, and dancing. To me, no trip to London would be complete without at least one show on London's equivalent of Broadway.

I researched shows ahead of time and bought tickets in advance for the show Billy Elliot. I goofed a little bit when buying tickets because I was hoping to catch the original cast of a show. I saw that Billy Elliot had just opened that year on Broadway in NYC, so I was hoping the same would be true for London's West End. WRONG. When we got to London, I realized that Billy Elliot had already been running for 6 years. Oops. Guess there would be no original cast for me, but the show was still phenomenal! 

Victoria Palace Theater in London, England

We got to London's West End a few hours before the show, so we enjoyed walking around a little bit, shopping, and getting dinner. I just mentioned that I love doing theater. Well, about a year after my husband and I got married, we had the opportunity of playing Molly and Giles Ralston in the famous Agatha Christie murder mystery, The Mousetrap. I don't exactly recall the specifics, but there is some rule about the show not being able to be turned into a movie or that the cast has to take an oath not to reveal the ending until after the show completes it's original run on the West End. When we did the show with our theater company back in 2007, we learned that almost 50 years later, The Mousetrap had still not completed its original run making it the longest running show in history. 

It had escaped my mind as the next two years went by, when as we were shopping in some theater boutiques in London, I saw t-shirts and souvenir programs celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Mousetrap. Suddenly, I decided that I wanted to see a performance of that show as well. We already had a full day of activities for the next day, but they offered a matinee performance, so we spend a little bit of time figuring out how we could still see everything we planned while squeezing in an afternoon show. Without too much trouble, we rearranged things a bit, and bought matinee tickets with pretty good seats. I suppose that after running for 50 years, tickets for a random Tuesday afternoon wouldn't be in that high of a demand. 

After that we got dinner at a cute pub with a nicer dining room upstairs. We explained to the waitress that we had a 7:00 show to catch, so she made sure we were done and out in enough time to make it back to the theater. 

Billy Elliot was a great show. For anyone who enjoys classic musical theater with some amazing choreography, this is a great show for you. I don't think it's still running in London or on Broadway, but if you ever happen catch a professional tour, it's definitely worth your time. There are some definite mature themes, so make sure you do your homework before taking small children to see it. 

What's this? We weren't in bed until almost 11:00 that night. But that didn't deter us one bit. What is one thing everyone has to see when they visit London? The famous tower and the crown jewels. That was our first stop the next morning, and we wouldn't let a little fatigue stand in our way of getting up early to beat the crowds. 

The journey continues with London Day 3 HERE. 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler