September 4, 1999: Jody’s Grand Day Out in London

I have the whole day in London to myself! And this morning, I have reservations to tour Buckingham Palace. To get to the palace, I walk along the pedestrian-only Queen’s Walk that borders Green Park; it is about a 10-minute walk. The pleasant, leafy Queen’s Walk was built for Queen Caroline, wife of George II.

It is another sunny, summer day. I wear my raincoat, not because I am cold, but to cover up my travel wallet. Mostly I wear my coat tied around my waist with the wallet around my neck and tucked underneath hidden from pickpocketers.

Buck House

Normally, Buckingham Palace is not open to the public. But, since the 1992 fire that destroyed parts of Windsor Castle, the Queen agreed to open it for a limited period of time in August and September while she is on holiday at Balmoral in Scotland. My £10 ticket fee helps pay for Windsor’s restoration.  

There is a long queue where we enter through the Ambassador’s Entrance. Buckingham Palace is where the Queen holds her official state dinners, garden parties, and the accolade ceremony to confer knighthood. The rooms that are part of the tour include the: Grand Staircase, Throne Room, State Dining Room, Music Room, and the Green, Blue, and White Drawing Rooms.

The rooms are opulent beyond words.

In the Throne Room everything is red and, anything that isn’t red, is gold. The room contains the chairs in which Elizabeth and Philip sat for the 1953 coronation ceremony. The red chairs, with the Queen’s cypher ‘EIIR’ embroidered in gold thread, look small against the dramatic red velvet canopy. I recognize this enormous room as the setting for Charles and Diana’s formal wedding pictures.

The White Drawing Room is more gold and crystal than white. A portrait of Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII) dominates the room along with a huge crystal chandelier surrounded by five smaller chandeliers dating from the early 19^th century. The antique furniture is French and made of gold brocade. There are floor-to-ceiling gold-framed mirrors; one of which conceals a secret door through which the Royal Family enters before guests arrive.

To call the State Dining Room big would be an understatement; the room is huge. It is decorated in white and gold, a style chosen by Edward VII in 1906. One article I read says the 175-foot dining table seats 170 and requires 1,700 pieces of cutlery and over 1,100 glasses, all measured and precisely placed.

As I pass from one dazzling room to the next, my enthusiasm dims. After a while, I become immune to the gold and glitter and it is hard to distinguish one chandelier-bedecked room from another. With my audio cassette, I pass through the rest of the rooms in a daze until coming to the last room; the Music Room.

With bow windows that overlook the garden; the Music Room has an intricately decorated cream-colored domed ceiling and sixteen stunning blue columns that imitate lapis lazuli. It is elegant but more subdued (if that is possible) than the other rooms; easier to take in and to distinguish its remarkable features. The Royal Family uses the Music Room for, well…music; recitals and drinks receptions.

I go out through the gardens where the Queen hosts her famous garden parties, and on to the gift shop. I purchase a pretty two-handled, teal/white/gold loving cup that commemorates the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones who were married just two months ago. It is fine bone English china with a curlicue design taken from the 13^th century door at the east end of St George’s chapel at Windsor where they were married.

I walk back to Green Park station and take the tube back to Embankment to take a sight-seeing boat cruise on the Thames.

But first I go in search of lunch. A short way up Villiers Street is a pub with a name I cannot resist—the Princess of Wales. Before Diana, England hadn’t had a Princess of Wales since Edward VII’s wife, Alexandra, at the end of the 19^th century. I am guessing this pub is named for her. (Note: Everything in England is always 200 years older than you think. The pub is actually named after George IV’s first wife, the Catholic widow Maria Fitzherbert, whose secret marriage was invalid under the law because the King had not given his consent.)

I order a cold bread and cheese Ploughman’s lunch, but it is, shall we say…pungent. In addition to four slices of English yellow cheddar, there is a salad of bitter greens, Branston pickle relish, two pickled onions—they are so sour they make my eyes water—and two slices of green apple. I wash it down with sparkling water. I should have ordered what the couple at the next table had—a bitter and toasty. The toasty is a delicious-looking open-face sandwich; a thick slice of bread topped with ham and cheese and broiled until melted and bubbly.

Sweet Thames Flow Softly

I walk back to Embankment Pier and board my river tour boat. It is very bright and sunny and I get a bit of sunburn. We cruise past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, turn around and pass the newly constructed replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and the imposing St Paul’s Cathedral, then sail under Tower Bridge looking up to see the massive structure overhead. As we clear the Tower, we turn around to watch them raise the bridge so a tall-masted boat can pass under. Our tour guide is very excited. She says they only raise the bridge a couple of times a week.

Whitehall

Next I walk back towards the Horse Guards Parade, along Whitehall Street, and past Downing Street, which is now gated and heavily guarded. When I was here for my high school trip in 1978, I walked right up to #10 and had my picture taken in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. Not anymore.

The next street over, King Charles Street, is my destination. Here are the Cabinet War Rooms; secret underground rooms from where Churchill directed the war effort during the Blitz. Everything is exactly as it was left on the day the lights were switched off in 1945. There is an audio-guided tour that walks me past the Cabinet Room, the Map Room, and even Churchill’s sleeping quarters. A concealed, transatlantic telephone room, disguised as a toilet, is where Churchill conversed with FDR. It was so secret even the military personnel did not know it was there.

I collect my suitcase from the Royal Horseguards Hotel and make it to Euston Station in time to catch the 16:10 PM train to Birmingham. I have tired feet, but an abiding love of this complex, tantalizing city. As Samuel Johnson famously said in 1777, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”

I arrive back at Birmingham about 6:00 PM and lug my heavy case out of the station, up to the Internet café, and then to find some supper. I stop at Bella Pasta and order the red pepper pesto linguine with the house red. Bella Pasta is a chain, but I find the food reasonably priced and very good, especially as I am very hungry having eaten little of my bitter-tasting Ploughman’s lunch.

Caroline and Tony greet me at the door and ask me to join them for tea. Tonight is their 34^th wedding anniversary. It is lovely sitting in the garden as the sun goes down.