London - Day 7

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday! This is where I share what's on my mind and invite you to join in by linking up and sharing your thoughts too. Today, I'll be wrapping up our trip to London with a recap of Day 7, our final full day of vacation.  If you're missed the other recaps, you can find them here ~

Day 1 and 2          Day 3          Day 4          Day 5          Day 6

Our son, Ian, left a day before we did, so Friday morning we went to breakfast for the last time as a party of three in London.  After breakfast, we walked him to the train station and bid him farewell.  We walked back to the apartment and got ourselves organized for our busy day ahead!  
 
We had booked a Changing of the Guard tour, and I’m so glad we did!  If I had done this on my own, I would have planted myself in front of Buckingham Palace and waited for the show.  Well, come to find out very little of the pomp and circumstance happens in front of the Palace!  On the way to our meeting point, we came across some beautiful spots to capture in photos.

We met our guide several blocks away from the Palace by the Equestrian statue of Edward VII.  

From there, the guide positioned us in the perfect spot for each part of the ceremony.  The company we used was Get Your Guide and I would definitely recommend them for the Changing of the Guard tour. 

The ceremony spans three locations:  St. James’s Palace, Buckingham Palace and Wellington Barracks.  You can see the Changing of the Guard on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  

Our guide did an excellent job explaining every aspect of the ceremony, while also sharing plenty of fascinating stories about the Royal Family.

 

As soon as the Changing of the Guard concluded, we hopped on the tube for a visit to Harrod’s.  

This shopping center is like nothing I’ve ever seen before!  So fancy!  We spent some time meandering through all the departments, oohing and aahing our way around.  The Christmas decorations had recently been put up so we got our first taste of the holiday season.  

All their departments were fantastic, but their food area was quite impressive.  Wish our local mall had something like this!

We knew we wanted to do high tea in London.  After a lot of research, we picked The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon at Fordham and Mason in Piccadilly.  What sealed the deal for me was the Queen herself had had tea at this location with the then Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla) and the Duchess of Cambridge (Kate)!   It was a wonderful place for afternoon tea!

For our final night in London, we had booked tickets to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.  I love Wicked and the performance was spectacular!  It was the perfect ending to our trip!

Saturday morning we were flying back home and leaving our London flat behind.  The memories we made will last a lifetime and we were so glad our son could join us!  Until next time London!

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