London, England - Buckingham Palace

After a day of rest in Brussels, we headed out to London! This was my first trip to the UK and I was very excited (along with Jennie, of course). We took the Eurostar (fast train that goes underneath the English Channel). I was a little nervous about traveling in a train under a huge body of water (I am very claustrophobic) but it was not bad at all!

Once we made it to London, we left our bags at the train station because we had tickets to tour the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace (which you can only do 2 months out of the year when the Queen is not home). We went straight to Buckingham Palace and discovered there was not a changing of the guard ceremony that day! Oh well, next time.




The time came to visit the State Rooms and it was amazing! Let's just say the Queen lives very well!!! I really can't say what my favorite was...it was all incredible! Because this is the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, they had a fabulous exhibit including some of the wedding gifts they received from various high profile dignitaries, her wedding gown (decorated with crystals and 10,000 seed pearls and boasts a 13 feet bridal train), and some of the most incredible jewelry I have ever seen!

We were unable to take pictures inside Buckingham Palace so I am attaching a couple of pictures from the Internet so you can see some of what we experienced:

The Throne:

The Grand Staircase:
Dining Room:
Diamond Tiara the Queen wore on her wedding day:
After the tour of the State Rooms was over, we got to walk through the back gardens! Beautiful!!!



We really enjoyed our time at Buckingham Palace! It is such an amazing place to visit and wonder what it would feel like to live in such opulence and over 775 rooms for me to get lost in!