Sunday - 12th December 2021

This morning was a chance for me to have a bit of a lie in after the early start yesterday. We had a quiet morning, I did get up a bit early and read the paper for a bit before Kathryn got up at about 9am. We had a quiet morning before heading out for a walk. We just needed to be out of the room for a bit to allow for it to have its daily service.

These are the flowers that we beginning to open.

We walked back over the Knightsbridge to buy dinner for later. We had planned to go to the restaurant in the hotel, but instead thought we should just have dinner in the room.

We popped into a coffee shop on the way back that I had thought looked okay. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually pretty good, which doesn’t always happen. More often than not it’s a disappointment. On the prentious scale, they scored points for not having a menu, but ordering “two long blacks” had the intended outcome. We stood at the end of the counter and then headed back to the room.

We had a bit of a rest before our big trip for the day which was out for a tour of Buckingham Palace.

 I had seen the tour about a week ago, but it was sold out. However, I checked again just a few days ago, and someone must have cancelled as we were able to book a couple of tickets.

The palace was pretty easy to get to. A short tube ride a couple of stops, and then a short walk.

We had to enter through the gallery at the side of the palace. On arrival we were quickly ushered through a security check, and into a waiting area. Unfortuantely, they were very strict on photography and so I don’t have any photos from this bit. I’ve copied some stock photos off the internet.

We had to wait in the Grand Hall for 20 minutes or so until everyone in our tour group had arrived. It didn't quite look like this as there was currently some renovations going on. Plus, it was also dark by 4pm and so there wasn't any sunlight for obvious reasons.

The tour started and we were lead of the Grand Staircase to the first floor. There was a lot of royal family history buy the guide. It was interesting, but hard to follow. There was a bit about the history and architecture, but mainly about the family.

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The next room we saw was the Green Drawing Room.

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Followed by the Throne Room.

Then followed the White Drawing Room, probably the most spectacular in my mind.

Then to the Music Room.

And the Blue Drawing Room.

Then a series of corridors lead us to the East Gallery. This was the bit where they said they filmed the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony with James Bond.

And finally, the Ballroom.

Rather amusingly for me, we left via the gift shop and picked up a complementary guidebook. It was just after 5pm, and we were feeling hungry and so headed straight back to the hotel.

The St James Park underground station had a nice decor to it.

Back at the hotel, we enjoyed the food we had brought back from Ottolenghi's earlier. We then got straight back into our movie watching. This evening we watched The Holiday, followed by Green Book.