Oh man. You guys must have sent your heatwave over here because wow is it hot. Mom and I are on our own now, but the heat is absolutely exhausting, so we didn’t get around to much. Our first stop was the Royal Mews, where they keep the Queen’s horses, carriages, and cars. It was so cool to see all of the super ceremonial harnesses up close!

Beautiful carriage made for the diamond jubilee

Different angle

We even got a glimpse of a few of the actual horses they use to pull the carriages. Apparently the Queen personally names all of them.

Right next to the Mews was the Queen’s Gallery inside Buckingham Palace. So cool! It was full of extraordinary art, furniture, decorations, and solid gold tea services on public display. The small part of the building we were in was beautiful as well, and not super crowded with tourists.

After lunch, we decided to walk over to Buckingham Palace and then to Westminster Abbey. It was so surreal to stand at the gates and look at the Palace!

The Queen was there while we were!

The Mall!

We wandered through St. James Park and stopped for a break in the shade.

All the trees were giant

View from where we sat

While we were resting, we looked at our guidebook and realized that the latest time they would let people into Westminster Abbey was in five minutes! So we rested some more before taking the long Tube ride back.

Red telephone box outside Westminster Underground station!

Tomorrow we’re going to take the day off to give our bodies a break and avoid being out in the predicted 86 and thunderstorms. Hopefully the boys will get up to something exciting in Venice!