Buckingham Palace

Today was our Buckingham Palace day and I am happy to report that it was better than expected. Not many pictures today since none are allowed within the palace.

It was raining this morning and there is no public transportation that gets you very close so I opted for a taxi and that was well worth it as he dropped us off right at the ticket booth. We arrived as it was opening so the lines were minimal. We toured many of the public areas of the castle: entrance ways, receiving rooms, dining rooms, a fabulous 50 meter long room containing Charles I art collection
featuring various Dutch and other masters including several paintings by Rembrandt. There was also an extensive exhibit about the 1952 Coronation. After some souvenir shopping at the gift shop we headed on to Harrod's.

Harrod's was fascinating! This one huge department store sells anything and everything. We visited the Christmas and Toy departments. The Toy department had several large Lego figures like this Santa Claus. They were demonstrating fake snow (add water to the powder and it turns into snow; after a few days it turns back to being a powder).  We were very tempted to buy some for our nephew's children, but knew the parents would probably not appreciate it.

We bought a sandwich for lunch there before catching the Tube back to our hotel. Fortunately the predicted heavy rain never materialized and we were able to walk back to our hotel from the subway stop without getting wet.
Tonight we're headed back to the Zetland Arms for supper, then packing up for our 10:30 pick-up for the ride to Dover and the Ocean Princess.