Buckingham Palace

We got off the bus to explore the Royal area. The road is red in this area because we are on a "red carpet" of sorts - it is a permanent red carpet of stone for royalty.
 

 

Our first stop is the rear entrance to St James palace, built by Henry the 8th to be near the hunting grounds. Next door is Clarence House, another royal palace where Charles and Camilla live. This rear courtyard is where they make the official announcement of the death of a monarch (even after the advent of Twitter). When Queen Elizabeth II dies it won't be official until it's proclaimed from the balcony here. 

From there we swung the corner to the road leading up to Buckingham Palace. Trafalgar Square is at the other end of this road from the palace at the end of the red road. From here we had a nice view of the Clarence ahouse (the cream house) where the Queen Mother lived, and was woken up each day by a Scottish bag piper. Quite an alarm clock!

 

We lined up on the boulevard to see the changing of the guard. There are 5 palaces that have to be guarded: 

Windsor, Buckingham, Clarence House, St. James palace and the Tower of London. They have to be guarded at all times 24/7 regardless of where the queen is currently. 

The change happens a few times a week and 5 infantry infantry regiments have prime responsibility for protecting the palaces. They are the only ones that wear the red jackets and the furry hats made from Canadian bear fur. The regiments change over every few days through an elaborate process of movement and parade. As we are lined up, today's regiment featured a pre-parade of the Irish guard with its bagpipers coming down the street. It was quite an incredible experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buckingham Palace was acquired by George the IV but Queen Victoria made it the official residence in 1837 after lots of renovations including the white facade and balcony which is so famous to us. Normally the Queen comes here (to her "office") once a week to meet with the Prime Minister and spends most of her time at Windsor, which she considers her home. Liz told us there are 500 rooms in the palace with a private suite of 12 rooms for the queen overlooking Green Park. Prince Philip has 4 rooms at the opposite end of the palace. When Queen Elizabeth rings her little bell, then, and only then, is he allowed in to her set of room!

Here is the famous balcony where the Royals greet the crowds. 

 

 

Today the Queen is not in residence as she traditionally spends the holiday at Windsor. We can tell this because when she is not in residence the Union Jack flies - otherwise it is her personal coat of arms on the flag pole.

There was a beautiful bed of tulips in front of the palace so we stopped for a few more photos of this incredbibly beautiful spot!