Today we have a guided walking tour to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
We decided to do this as part of a tour because the tour description said we would get better photos of the Guards Changing and not be in the middle of large crowds.
We needed to meet the tour guide this morning at the Eros Fountain in Piccadilly Circus at 9:30 AM. We set an alarm for 7:00 AM to give us time to get ready, eat breakfast in the room, and then take the Tube to the Piccadilly Circus Metro Station. We planned on leaving the room at 8:30 AM to meet our tour
We got ready and Stephanie heated our bagels on the frying pan on the stove since we have no toaster or oven. This actually works really well, it does take a high burner setting to get the pan hot enough for toasting the bagels, which were cut in half. The small frying pan was only big enough to do one bagel at a time.
After we ate, we made sure we had the correct route to get to Piccadiy Circuis from the Twer Hill metro station near the hotel. This was going to be our first two-line metro trip on the Tube system, we had to make a change at an intermediate station to another line. Since this was new to us, we were going to leave a little bit early to make sure we arrived for the tour in plenty of time.
We had used the TfL Transit App to provide us with the route information last night, but for some reason, on my phone, the app was giving us an entirely different routing, with much more walking. It was not even taking us to the nearby Tower Hill station, it was now showing a route that had us walking to the Liverpool Metro station instead, which was a much farther walk away from our hotel. I tried a couple of times to produce the same route as last night, even inputting the starting point as the Tower Hill metro station, and it gave me the same result, something was up.
Luckily, Stephanie was able to pull up the same route as last night on her phone, but I think she was using Google Maps instead of the TfL App, nonetheless, we had the original routing from our nearby Tower Hill station. I do not know if the TfL App was taking into account how crowded the routes were and had made an adjustment based on that, but we had plenty of time and did not want to walk any more than necessary.
We needed to take either one of the two westbound train lines, either the Circle Line or the District Line from the Tower Hill Station to the Embankment Station, and from there, make a transfer inside the station for the Bakerloo Line. This would then take us to the Piccadily Station, our destination. The total time was listed as 25 minutes including any walking time to and from the stations, and for the transfer inside the Embankment Station.
We headed out at about 8:30 AM, we were ready and decided if we were early, we could just take photos in the Piccadilly Circus area before the tour started. It was a beautiful sunny day, but it was cold outside, about 33 degrees F.
We had already taken the westbound trains from Tower Hill several times in the last two days, so that part was easy.
Last night, we figured out why Stephanie’s Phone was not working for the contactless entry to the metro stations with the TfL App. In reality, mine was not working through the App either, even though I thought it was. Yesterday, I realized that my phone was actually using Samsung Pay for contactless payments, using my Costco Citi Visa, not the CapitalOne Mastercard I had entered into the TfL app for contactless payments. Even though I had the TfL App open to the payment screen, and my credit card was showing up on my phone, when I scanned for payment, it then showed the Citi Card instead through Samsung Pay. We had read that USA cards may not work in the TfL App, but I had assumed it was working on my phone since I was able to pass through the turnstiles.
We had never set up Stephanie’s Samsung Pay, so there was no payment being processed in the App or in Samsung Pay like mine. Last night, we tried to set up credit cards in her Samsung Pay, but we were not successful, we could not get through to the Capital One App for verification of the credit card. Stephanie was just going to have to use the physical contactless credit card again today to pay for her rides on the metro.
We had passed through the Embankment station before, so we knew that part of the route. The information on the route for transfer inside the Embankment Station to the Bakerloo Line showed it was three minutes of walking, so it appeared to be easy.
We exited the first train in the Embankment Station and found the walkway toward the Bakerloo Line, we now just had to get the direction of travel correct. We looked at the route diagrams and saw the one that headed to Piccadilly, our destination. It was an interesting route to the train platform, we first took some steps downward, then two different escalators down, and then another set of steps down to the platform. This line was very deep underground compared to the line we had just used.
We did not have to wait long for the train to arrive. It was older and much smaller than the ones we had used on the Circle and District Lies, I guess it had to be smaller to fit in the tunnels it used. Once we boarded, we both thought that this reminded us of the trains we used last time in London, hence the nickname of the metro, “The Tube”. The cars were very round inside without much headroom and looked more like a tube than the newer trains. There were no automated station announcements either, so we had to pay attention looking out the windows to know when we arrived at the Piccadilly Station where we needed to get off. We heard someone comment to another person that this was the deepest line in the London metro system, and we could believe that.
It was only a few stops before we arrived at the Piccadilly Station and got off. We headed up and had to take just as many stairs and escalators upward as we had to get down to this line.
We saw a couple of different exits from the station and selected the one titled Eros, which was the fountain we were trying to get to for the meeting point of the tour. We headed up a short set of steps and the exit was right next to the fountain. We had looked online to see pictures of the fountain so we would recognize it today, not knowing it would be this esy to find.
It was only 9:00 AM, and we still had 30 minutes to wait for the tour. There was not a lot to see nearby, so we decided to try and get the Samsung Pay to work on Stephanie’s phone again. We realized that the Capital One App she had on her phone needed upgrading, and maybe that was why we could not log in last night. We upgraded the app but it took a long time to upload, the internet seemed really slow through the phone service here in London for some reason. Once the app was finally upgraded, we still couldn’t get it to work without showing an error, so we tried to load another credit card into her Samsung Pay, our Costco Citi Card. It loaded, but for verification, the only option was to call the bank, and we did not want to do that from London, it was just past 4:00 AM in the USA, and we doubted anyone would answer anyway. We did not understand why we could not just get a verification code via text, but that was not a choice, so we just gave up altogether.
By this time, it was about 9:15 AM and we saw a man holding a tour guide flag over to the side. We wandered over to him along with several other people who had been congregating at the fountain. There was a group of around 20 people on the tour, and he went to each group to verify our names against his list.
He gave us some background information on the plan for this mornings tour, and how and where we were going. He also give some instructions on how to get back to this location after the tour was finished for anyone who needed to get back to this Metro Station.
We made several stops along the way and he explained some of the history of the buildings. Of specific interest were the “Gentlemen Clubs” that were built on a street named Pall Mall. These were clubs designated for men only that had been built here because the men played a ball game on a strip of land that was now the location of the main street to Buckingham Palace, The Mall.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Pall Mall is a street in the St James’s area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James’s Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street’s name is derived from pall-mall, a ball game played there during the 17th century, which in turn is derived from the Italian pallamaglio, literally “ball-mallet”.
The area was built up during the reign of Charles II with fashionable London residences. It is known for high-class shopping in the 18th century until the present, and gentlemen’s clubs in the 19th century. The Reform, Athenaeum and Travellers Clubs have survived to the 21st century. The War Office was based on Pall Mall during the second half of the 19th century, and the Royal Automobile Club’s headquarters have been on the street since 1908.
We were standing right across the street from the Athenaeum Club, which has been featured in many movies. It is very distinct with a golden statue on the front of the building on the side facing this street.
From there, we headed to a couple of other historic sites before finally arriving at the wide street heading toward Buckingham Palace, The Mall. There was a parallel side street and it had quite a few camper trailers on it, all part of a movie shooting company that was making a film here.
The police had already been clearing The Mall in preparation for the changing of the guard. We headed to a spot along the street behind some metal barricades to wait for the changing of the guard to start.
There is a group of the “old guard” and then a group of the “new guard”, and these two groups make up the changing of the guard, the new guards are replacing the old guards. The old guards are on station at St James’s Palace, and the new guards are at the Wellington Barracks. There are bands at both locations. The two guard groups meet at Buckingham Palace for the official change.
Here is a link to a website for the King’s Guard called The Household Division that explains the Changing of the Guard.
We could hear the band start playing at the Barracks for the new guards to start their march, and shortly afterward, we heard the band for the old guards. First came a group of guards on horseback, followed by the old guard a couple of minutes later. We had a great view of the old guards as they headed toward Buckingham Palace, as well as the horse guard.
Our guide had said we were going to walk alongside them on the sidewalk as they paraded toward Buckingham Palace, but after a short walk, he stopped us, right at the street coming from St. James Castle, he spoke to another guide that said the King was getting ready to drive out to Buckingham Palace, so we waited there for that. Sure enough, about ten minutes later, police and soldiers came onto the street and then a motorcade came out and King Charles was in the back of a limo, and we could clearly see him waving through the oversized rear window of the vehicle. It was pretty cool, and we had not expected it.
Our guide had gotten confused because he thought the flag on the King’s Residence was the normal flag for the UK, the Union Jack. It was very calm, so the flag was not moving, and it was hard to tell if it was the Royal Flag, indicating the King was in residence, or the normal Union Jack. If the King is in residence he usually goes to Buckingham Palace during the guard change, all of the roads are already blocked and the police are everywhere anyway.
We then headed toward Buckingham Palace and waited a distance away for the new guard group to head our way so we could also see them. In the meantime, the two bands played all kinds of music in the Buckingham Palace parade ground, we could not see them, but we could hear them.
All of the guards were wearing gray coats over their red uniforms because it was cold, so none of them looked like the typical pictures from the summertime where they were dressed in their red uniforms only. The old guard had been wearing the bear fur hats when they paraded by, but our guide said the new guards were from a different regiment and they wore typical black or gray military hats.
There was quite a crowd of people along the fence for Buckingham Palace, and our guide had said we were not going close to there, it was too crowded for good photos, and the people were standing 10-12 people deep. I won’t say it was disappointing, but we did not get to see the full guard and both bands together parading in front of the Palace like in the typical pictures, we only were going to see the individual groups, but with much better opportunities for pictures.
In a bit, the two guards split up again, and each headed toward their respective destinations. The horse guard came by first, heading back to the Palace and then the new guard and band came by to head to St. James Castle, and then it was over, other than for the band to head back by, but not playing this time, only marching very fast to get back to the Wellington Barracks where they all resided.
The tour was complete. The guide told us we could walk through the park to get to the area where the horse guard is headquartered, so we headed that way, first stopping by a much-needed bathroom in the park. It was 20 pence to enter, and it was payable by contactless credit card only.
We each paid and headed inside. On the way out, a tour group arrived and we could barely get out of the restroom it was so crowded, we had made it just in time.
There was a bird sanctuary area with a small pond in the park, and there were many waterbirds, but most surprising was a group of about 8 White Pelicans and they were all standing on some wooden benches, posing for all of the photos people were taking, including us. They were very beautiful.
We crossed the gravel parade grounds which had originally been made for jousting. At the far end were the stables for the horses, and outside on each side of the main gate were soldiers on horseback, one set on each side. They were partially inside a small guard house specially designed for them. We took photos and also a couple of selfies with the guards on horseback.
From here, we could see it was not far to walk to the Parliament Building and Big Ben, so we headed in that direction to take some photos in the sunshine, it had been very cloudy and windy when we were there yesterday. On the way, we passed by Downing Street where the Prime Minister stays. There were several groups of what appeared to be demonstrators there, also with a good number of uniformed policemen. The demonstrators were representing something about soldiers. We had seen them earlier riding what sounded and appeared to be Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, they were loud and they were holding flags as they drove around this area.
We walked right through the groups on the sidewalk, not really knowing what was going on. As we neared Parliament there were even more demonstrators, this time from different groups, one was opposing the exit of the UK from the EU, and one was demonstrating for immigrants from somewhere. This entire area was totally packed with people and we could hardly walk through, and of course, there were police everywhere.
We did not want to be in this much of a crowd, so we headed to the nearby metro station to head back to the hotel, skipping taking many more pictures in that area, it was too full of people anyway. On the way to the station, we passed another small grocery, which looked big from the street, but was only a single aisle along the front of a building. You walked in one end and got whatever you wanted to buy and then paid on the other end. Our goal was to purchase some bottles of wine, and so we found a small area of refrigerated wine and selected two of the same brand of Pinot Grigio we had purchased the other day. The wine bottles all had some type of security device on them, so we had to go to the counter to pay so they could be removed, most of the other people were paying at self-checkout registers.
We put the wine in the backpack and headed inside the Metro Station for the several-stop ride back to The Tower Hill Station and to our hotel.
After arriving we headed outside the station and down to the area by the ticket office for the Tower of London. We were hungry and knew there were a couple of places to eat nearby. We went into a fast food restaurant called Crispys and ordered some lunch, I had a fried chicken breast wrap and Stephanie had a fried chicken breast sandwich, and we split fries and a drink. We sat at one of their outside tables and ate. It was good, and the place was very busy.
We wanted to get some better photos of the Tower of London in the sunshine, so we did that next and headed down to the waterfront for the same purpose. We still could not figure out how to get to the riverfront for a better view of the Tower Bridge, we could see some people there, but could not figure out how they got there. Stephanie asked a security guard for the Tower of London, and he said his gate was normally open, but not now due to some construction. He said we needed to go to the other side, and we could get there from that side. We were not sure, that was where we went the other night to no avail. Maybe it was open in the daytime, so we headed around the entire Tower Of London structure. The walkway was crowded with people heading to the Tower Bridge.
Once we got to the other side, we could see that this was not going to work, there were people along the waterfront, but they were getting there from the Tower of London itself, not from this area. It was blocked off between us and the area where we saw people for some construction. We were done and headed back to the Hotel room. We had been walking and standing since 8:30 AM and we were tired. Maybe the guard had thought we just wanted to get to the bridge itself, and that was achieved, but not access to the riverwalk like we had wanted
Once we arrived at the room, we rested a bit and then decided to go ahead and start packing our suitcases. That took about an hour, and we put almost everything in them to simulate being as full as they would be tomorrow morning when we were leaving. We weighed each bag and made a few adjustments, one being to expand Stephanie’s suitcase just like we had done to get to Finland from home. It was underweight but was too full to get it to close.
Once that was done, so were we. The was nothing else we wanted to do in London on this trip, and we were tired. We just rested and watched some TV for a while, enjoying some wine. After a bit, we heated up our leftover pasta and sauce, and the remainder of our French Bread from the other night. We were not that hungry we had eaten a late lunch and were now too tired to go out to find something else to eat.
We spent the rest of the evening planning our morning departure, trying to determine what time we wanted to schedule our Uber driver to meet us for our drive to London Heathrow Airport. We finally decided on 8:30 AM and scheduled a driver. Shortly afterward, a driver was assigned to meet us outside the hotel at 8:30 AM. We also did an online check-in for Delta Airlines through our phone App.
We watched more TV and then headed to bed at about 10:30 PM, setting an alarm for 7:00 AM in the morning
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