Changing of the Guide/Guard and other things in London

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, in London we said goodbye to Elzo our tour guide by this point, on Thursday morning we were greeted at the bus by a cheerful British lady, Andrea, who was our London tour guide. She was great as well, a very knowledgeable and experienced guide, with a quick wit she was entertaining as well as informative, and she had the craziest umbrella to indicate her presence to the group.

Driving around London in the tour bus was tricky because of the Tube strike, however we still managed to see all the highlights (though most of them only from the bus). We saw places I recognized from literature and news reports, saw statues of people familiar from history lessons, and it all went by so fast that it made my head swim. Of course we saw plenty of stuff related to the Royal family, but my favourite was the shop that was the Royal ‘Lamp Shade Shop’.

We finally got to stop and get off the bus at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We were fortunate to arrive before any other groups that morning, which was nice because the church was not crowded with people milling about. I had a better sense of spiritual connection with Saint Paul’s Cathedral than any of the other large churches visited on this trip, perhaps because it wasn’t as filled with tourists, and perhaps because it was less ornate on the inside - the actual structure seemed to suggest that what happened in the building was more important than the building itself.

I made a special effort to seek out the painting The Light of the World by Holman Hunt. This famous painting portrays Jesus standing at a closed door with a lamp in his one hand and the other hand is knocking on the door. It was larger, and more colourful than I had expected. I could have stayed and admired it for quite a while, searching out the meaning and symbolism in the painting, but we had limited time in the Cathedral, so instead I bought a small poster of the painting (with a history of explanation of the artwork on the back).

There were many famous landmarks we saw, things like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and 10 Downing Street - but we even saw some famous people: at one point traffic was being held up the police and our guide said this meant someone famous or powerful would be coming along, and sure enough along came a motorcade with Michelle Obama and her girls in one of the cars. I had read in the paper the previous evening that Michelle Obama and her daughters were in London (they had taken in a performance of The Lion King according to the news report) so it was a bit of a thrill to see them in person (sort of). Apparently President Obama was off doing presidential things somewhere else, but Michelle and the girls stayed behind in Europe for a bit of a holiday.

The morning tour ended with the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The bus driver, Jimmy, had obtained a special permit which allowed him to drive the bus down the lane leading to Buckingham Palace (which apparently is a rarity) thus we saw the changing of the guards from two vantage points, the bus itself (which enabled us to see over the crowds) and the sidewalk in the ideal location thanks to our London guide (which enabled us to hear the band and take great pictures). Once the pomp and ceremony was over it was back on the bus, and back to the hotel.

There were so many things we saw that morning that I couldn’t begin to list them all, but let me end this post with a couple of favourites. We drove by one church that had a pulpit built into the wall on the outside of the building. This was done because at one time that church was so popular that it always had overflow crowds who stood outside the church during the service - so this outside pulpit was built so that the crowds on the sidewalk could hear a sermon as well (imagine that!) Another place of interest was the hospital where penicillin was discovered (and Princes William and Harry were born). And finally there was Baker Street, the address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (though his address in the books, 221B Baker Street never actually existed) the 200 block of Baker Street has become a site sought out by fans of Conan Doyles’ famous creation (but more on that in another post).