Time is Flying By

Big Ben & Parliament

We've finished up our third and final day in London and the time has absolutely flown by. We had a lengthy list of possibilities knowing in advance we wouldn't do everything on the list.  We managed to visit most of the places we wanted to and had very full days without feeling rushed at all. The major highlights:

Westminster

Inside St. Margaret's Church

We spent an afternoon in Westminster, seeing Parliament and Big Ben and snapping photos as tours were unavailable.  We toured Westminster Abbey and saw many memorials and burial sites in addition to the beautiful stained glass and worship space.  One of the most recent internments was that of renowned British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking who died

Westminster Abbey

in 2018. While we were waiting to get in to the Abbey, I was able to see the lovely St. Margaret's Church that is next door.

Churchill War Rooms

The Churchill War Rooms are part of the larger Imperial War Museum.  They were the headquarters for Prime Minister Churchill during WWII and were located in the fortified basement area of Whitehall, the government office building next to Parliament.  It was here that Churchill and his military and government leaders led the war effort against Germany.

British Library

Gutenberg Bible

Housing centuries worth of original documents with a rotating display of "treasures, we saw a Gutenberg Bible, one of the original hand-written copies of the Magna Carta, original music scores of Handel and Mozart, and drawings by Michelangelo.

Kensington Palace

St. James's Palace

We saw Kensington Palace and walked through both Kensington Park and Hyde Park.  We also saw St. James's Palace, built by King Henry VIII in the 1530s and still used today for some royal functions.

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Home of the Crown Jewels, the Tower of London has served as a fortress, a palace, and a prison -- sometimes concurrently.  We saw the Crown Jewels, climbed several towers and along the wall, and had great views of Tower Bridge.

The Painted Hall -- Royal Naval College

Greenwich

We did make it to Greenwich where we visited the Royal Naval College and saw the famous painted hall that includes murals of William and Mary, and we also saw the Queen's House and the Cutty Sark.

Museum of the Docklands

This area of the City is now called Canary Wharf, but it is the historic docklands that were built here that contributed to Britain being a global empire and a center of maritime industry.  The museum did an excellent job of recounting the history of the creation of the docklands and as the headquarters of the East India Company.