Buckingham Palace, the Victoria Memorial and St James’s Park

Hello!

New day, new blog entry about my adventures in London.

I hope that these mini blog posts I'm doing help you when you go to visit the capital of Britain.

Buckingham Palace or the queen's residence, as it's also known, is a building that was built in 1703 by the Duke of Buckingham, that's where it got its name from. It became the royal residence in 1761 by King George III's wife, even though it wasn't until 1837 that Queen Victoria moved in and so it was officially converted into an official palace of residence for the monarchs. Prior to living here, Queen Victoria and her predecessors lived in St James's Palace.

If you stand in front of Buckingham Palace and you turn right, you'll see a smaller yellow building. This is the St James's Palace, the old royal residence of the English crown.

It has more than 700 rooms and 78 bathrooms for guests, staff and officials, it has its own chapel, post office, swimming pool, bowling alley, cinema, operating room, heliport and a huge garden behind the palace that measures 161. 874 m².

How do you know if the queen is in residence?

It's very simple! All of the palaces have a flag, don't they? In this case, it's used to show whether the Queen is in residence or not. Therefore the royal flag on the flagpole will tell you. If the Queen isn't there, the flag that you'll see flying on the flagpole is the Union flag.

Summer is normally the time of year that you can visit the palace, as the Queen leaves Buckingham Palace and spend the holiday at Windsor Castle or at Balmoral in Scotland.

I'd totally recommend going inside since you don't just get to visit the royal bedrooms, but you can also get to enjoy the museum rooms where you can see a lot of the outfits that were worn for official events and the dresses worn for royal weddings. It's amazing! Once you finish the tour of the palace, you'll have all the time you want to visit the palace gardens, where you can enjoy looking out over more than 300 different types of flowers and a huge lake. You'll end up filling up all of your phone storage with all of the photos you'll take! People usually spend around or over two hours inside.

A very important piece of advice! From experience, I'll tell you that if you're thinking of taking sandwiches and drinks in a backpack for the day and you're going to Buckingham Palace, you're better off leaving them at the hotel and picking them up later. This is because, when you go into the palace, they throw away all of your liquids and food that you bring in your bag, as well as putting you through a rigorous security check with metal detectors and x-raying any bags you bring.

I suppose you'll be wondering how much it costs to get in. Well, I'll tell you that it doesn't cost more than £25 (similar price to Westminster Abbey) and there are discounts available for students, children and senior citizens. You can buy the tickets online as well as in person. Its opening hours are from 9:30 in the morning to 19:30 in the evening, however last admission is at 17:15.

Another thing not to be missed at Buckingham Palace is the Changing of the Guard. Everyone visiting London loves the English Royal Guard, simply for their red outfits, big black hats and serious expressions.

If you go before the 19th of June, you can see the Changing of the Guard everyday apart from on Thursdays and Saturdays, it goes on from 11:00 until 11:45 (it lasts approximately 45 minutes). After that date, you'll be able to see it everyday of the week. The Changing of Guard takes place on the main courtyard of Buckingham Palace and you can watch it through the bars of the fence that surrounds the Palace.

To get to the Palace, you can walk following "Directions to: Westminster, Londres SW1A 1AA" or you can take the tube and get off at the stop: "Victoria station".

You'll find a roundabout in front of the Palace that has a Queen Victoria Memorial Statue in the middle of it. At the top of this marble statue is a statue of Queen Victoria, who's name means "victory" in Latin. Each of its 4 corners has a statue of a lion that represent peace, progress, agriculture and industry respectively.

You can also see how all of the roads that go around the Palace are red, representing a kind of red carpet. It's a symbol that makes sure the arrival of the Queen or of any official guests is an entrance worthy of the Oscars. The road that goes directly from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace is called "the Mall", it's a very wide road, on one side, you can see a few different old royal residences and, on the other side, you can see one of the most famous parks in London: St James's.

St James's Park is a huge place where you can roll about in the grass or in the hammocks you can find throughout the park and where you can have a little snack or a few drinks. It's an ideal place to relax and somewhere you can enjoy looking at numerous species of animal: there are pelicans (it may seem strange but, yes, there are pelicans! ) and squirrels that you can see running around the gardens.

Here's an interesting fact, St James's Park has quite a lot of swans that are all "sponsored" or that are the property of the royal household, or specifically property of the Queen and anyone who does them any damage will be arrested and taken away by the police.

I hope you've enjoyed this post and I hope to see you in the next one; and remember, if you've liked it, don't forget to have a look at this guide to London in 4 days by Erasmusu. Thanks!

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