Bus Tour Part 1

We are starting our day with a bus tour around London. Hoping I can blog in smaller chunks to capture the history for the adults at home with pictures. We are getting our tour in early because today is Commonwealth Day, which means London will be on “lockdown” when the Royals come out to Westminster abbey for services. I guess like when the president travels around. The Queen is the head of the Commonwealth of 53 nations although it is not a hereditary position (although Prince Charles has already been designated by the voting members to be her successor). All of the heads of state will be here making it a maximum security event and will also be the last appearance for Harry and Meghan. 

This is Mark, our very British tour guide who was born here in London. 

London is a city of 8.5 million people built by the Romans. Originally it was two cities. The West part near Westminster contains the royal palaces, and the Houses of Parliament. It is a city in its own right which started about a thousand years ago. The older side contains London Bridge, the Tower of London, and  St. Paul’s, which is the original and older side. Over time they’ve been swallowed up to become one metropolis. 

London is made up of Burroughs. This is the one for the hotel. We also saw some cute little kids on their way to school for the day. In England most students wear uniforms, even in the public schools. 
The streets around here are very exclusive with long terraces, townhomes, and in fact young Princess Diana lived here when she moved to London. Also Freddie Mercury and Hugh Grant have homes in this area. 

Into south Kensington now and these beautiful homes in the museum district would have originally been single family homes but are now broken up into flats. Where the balconies are, that’s where the foyers would be for receiving guests, not on the first floor as would be in the US. This street is an old royal hunting ground that feeds into Hyde Park, the largest of London’s parks. 
Of course we had to ask Mark about his opinion of Megxit: Mark says they seem to be in love and very nice people. He thinks since Harry won’t likely be King then it’s up to them but that the whole thing has been handled badly by the palace to make an unecessary furor. He thinks Harry is a “constitutional spare part” but seems like a nice chap and should be free to do what he wants. Typically British he told us not to get worked up about the historian in the British press.