Today started out a bit sad...it was our last full day in London. We both thoroughly enjoyed London however we were super excited to move onto the next adventure as well.
First things first, Abbey Road Studios and the famous crosswalk. We both love the Beatles so this was a must-see and if we had more time in the UK we would've taken a trip to Liverpool to see where it all started, but we had to settle with this. After that we headed to King's Cross Station in search of Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter. They are doing mega-renovations at this station and we couldn't find it which totally sucked!
Since we moved things around yesterday, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral next to finally tour it. When Prince William and Catherine were married, they said they chose Westminster Abbey because it had more of a "homey, family-like feel". When we toured Westminster neither of us could believe that anything could make Westminster feel homey. Until we went inside St. Paul's.
This church is Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece (he was an amazing architect and has built umpteen buildings in London and other areas). The church was completed in 1710 and took 35 years to complete! It has a dome on it that is just breathtaking and rises 364 feet (no, we didn't take the steps to the top). Many historic events have taken place here including the funerals of Admiral Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Winston Churchill. The Jubilees of Queen Victoria, George V and the present Queen were celebrated here. And the fairytale wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place here as well. Once again, this church was filled to the brim with monuments and memorials and even has a crypt below that we visited with 200 more memorials. St. Paul's is also home to the Whispering Gallery at 99 feet above the floor. After taking 259 spiral steps you can reach it and whisper something into the wall on one side and a second later it transmits clearly on the other side...107 feet away. Crazy. The church was humongous, absolutely humongous...the ceilings were SO high, the pillars were massive and everything seemed to be done in white marble. I definitely see how Westminster was more homey, but I preferred this church. There was also a tribute to U.S. soldiers that died in WWII in this church behind the high altar.
We ate a quick lunch at the train station and then took a train to Surrey to visit Hampton Court Palace. The infamous King Henry VIII and his six wives lived here and spent today's equivalent of $27.5 million expanding and refurbishing the palace. It sits right on the Thames River and interestingly has two distinctly separate palaces. The original was started in 1514 and is in the Tudor fashion while the south wing was designed by Sir Christopher Wren (same person that designed St. Paul's) in the 17th century. We toured the State Apartments with amazing paintings, the Great Hall lined with tapestries, and the Chapel Royal with an amazing ceiling. Also able to view the King's and Queen's Apartments, Georgian Rooms and kitchen. This palace allowed photos to be taken (yay!).
Afterwards we walked through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park (another immaculate royal park) to view Princess Diana's memorial and Kensington Palace. It started to rain on us (our first major rain....we lucked out!!!) but we made it through. We stopped by an Italian restaurant for dinner. Jim had traditional bolognaise lasagna and said it was good. I had some kind of steak...it was excellent. Normally I love Italian food, but all of their Italian had seafood in it. Yuck.
We went back to the apartment and packed our stuff up----early train to Paris in the morning!!!!
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