London, Day 2

Last time I was in London, I missed a couple of things that I wanted to see, such as the Churchill War Rooms. We were able to book tickets for today!

On the way, we were able to see Big Ben in all its glory, and we also got a glimpse of the Parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey.

At the war rooms, these rooms provided the secret underground headquarters for the British government during the Second World War. Honestly, if it wasn’t a museum today, we normal civilians would probably never know it was there. After the Japanese surrendered, the war rooms were closed and left undisturbed until the Parliament made sure it could be preserved. Even then, knowledge of and access by a general audience was limited until the 80s. This place was really cool! We saw a lot of neat stuff. We saw the living quarters of some big players in the government at that time, including Winston Churchill’s own bedroom/office, as well as his wife’s bedroom. We also saw the Transatlantic Telephone Room (this allowed Churchill to talk securely with Roosevelt during the war). We also saw map rooms, areas for typists and switchboard operators to work, and dormitories for the employees to stay if they wanted to avoid bombings on their way home. Alongside the rooms that have been preserved for posterity, there was also a neat museum on Winston Churchill himself. He’s a really fascinating figure in history to me. I’m really glad we could make the visit here.

After emerging from underground, we made the short walk over to Westminster Abbey! This church is just as beautiful as I remember. This time, we were allowed to take photographs! I remember when I last visited in 2015, they were very strict about no photography allowed. Apparently in 2020, they lifted that ban. I enjoyed looking at all the ornate details inside the chapel and finding familiar names of individuals that have been entombed or memorialized there, such as Mary Queen of the Scots, Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, and various kings. Charles Darwin is also buried there somewhere, but I must have missed his tomb/marker. Pretty cool!

Below are some photos of tombs and memorials we saw in the abbey!

After gawking at the awesome ceilings of the abbey and wandering the halls, we decided to set off to visit Buckingham Palace, as that was also just a short walk away. We decided to cut through St. James’ Park, which is a wonderful green space that is reminiscent of Central Park for me. It’s the oldest Royal Park, and Buckingham Palace can see it from their windows. Beautiful park.

We wandered around the exterior of the palace, watched the Royal Guards for a bit, and checked out the Victoria Memorial – dedicated to Queen Victoria. There were a lot of people at the palace! Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t have booked a tour of the inside, because they aren’t opening to visitors until later in July. Oh well!

We walked back through St. James’ to get on the tube and navigated back to our airbnb apartment. We decided on Chinese takeaway tonight because I kept seeing Asian restaurants and got into the mood… I couldn’t quite talk Kiley into Korean BBQ … but the Chinese food hit the spot anyway! We watched more Outlander before going to bed. We’re almost done with the first season already!

Up next for us: the Harry Potter Studio Tour!