United Kingdom holiday : Back on deck

After taking a day off yesterday to get over our colds it was back on deck today. We started off early with a big list of things to see and do. We got off the tube at Temple. The Temple was originally the precinct of the Knights Templar whose Temple Church was named in honour of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The Templars' existence was tied closely to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. It then became one of the main legal areas in London which it still is today.

First stop was Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment. I gave Geoff a hard time about the British stealing this obelisk from Egypt but it seems they gave it to Britain as a gift.

There were a lot of holes in the bases of these monuments -apparently from a bomb dropped in the road in WWII.

Whitehall Gardens

Whitehall Place
Then we wandered up the street until we came to Trafalger Square. This is the mall running up to Buckingham Palace.

Nelson on top of his column

There was a falconer with his falcon who is employed to keep the pigeons away from Trafalgar Square. Geoff had a long chat with him.

On our way to Westminster we stumbled across the Horse Guards Headquarters. Very impressive!

And then on to see the man himself at Downing Street. But for some reason they wouldn't let us in!

The police guard didn't seem very tough. And they let in a truck without even looking in it!

Next it was time for our Westminster Abbey tour. I had forgotten the sheer scale of the inside and its magnificence. We weren't allowed to take photos inside but these give an idea of what it is like.

The carving in stone on the ceilings in particular are amazing. It was really interesting hearing about the kings and queens buried there plus lots of other interesting figures of history.
Last stop of the day was the Cabinet War Rooms.

From 1939 to 1945, a group of basement offices in Whitehall served as the nerve centre of Britain’s war effort. Known as the Cabinet War Rooms, the complex was occupied by leading government ministers, military strategists and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It was only really down in the basement of a building. Hardly a deep bunker.

This is the cabinet room. Many of the rooms were left exactly as they were on VE Day. They just packed up their belongings and turned out the lights and left

This was Churchill's private dining room

This was the kitchen where all food was prepared

This is the concrete reinforcement that was put in to provide better protection for the underground rooms. Apparently it would probably not have helped had there been a direct hit.