We were excited to head back to London as we had really enjoyed our first couple of days there! On our first full day there, we headed out to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  We had received the excellent advice to go and see the guards preparing off to one side – we got a much better view there than when we fought through the mobs at the Palace!

 

 

 

After we saw the ceremony, we went via Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery of Art and enjoyed seeing the oldest art in the gallery from Italy. One of the highlights was a “cartoon” done by none other than Leonardo da Vinci – check out the link if you would like to see it.

 

 

After the gallery, we headed to Westminster Abbey, and saw St Margaret’s church on the grounds before attending an Evensong service – it was very beautiful hearing the songs and prayers in this lovely church. We also saw the parliament buildings and Big Ben beautifully lit up at night.

 

 

On our next day we had brunch with our friend Pam from New Zealand before exploring the British Musuem.

 

 

We particularly enjoyed the Egyptian galleries (including the famous Rosetta stone), Egyptian mummies, the Assyrian gallery and some of the original statues from the Parthenon (we had seen some of the others in Greece).  There is a bit of controversy here as Greece wants these back and the British museum is reluctant to give them back!

 

 

 

 

 

We continued our Kiwi theme with dinner with another New Zealand friend Kyra and her daughter Orla.

 

 

We love being able to catch up with other New Zealanders while travelling!