A London walk

This week we stayed in London but did do a few walks. Wednesday i decided to go to the National History Museum to get some culture in my life. I was waiting for a bus out side of Kensington Palace and these two sets of carriages came by. They had come from the Palace but i did not know who was in them or what the reason for it. Prince William and Kate live at the palace so i'm just going to say it was them and they were going grocery shopping. I know it wasn't the Queen, she has a nicer ride.  

Then it was on to the History Museum,

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

Another beautiful buildings with lots of things to see. I just checked out couple of things, one was the dinosaur bones

and the other was the Creepy Crawlies. It was a large room with just bugs. Being i'm not a person that cares for bugs, i spent a short time in this room.  The Museum is free so i will be going back again to see more of it

There having a sale on handbags if you need one. Just let me know if you need one this size, it also doubles as a tent. 

Saturday we would be going on a walk from Leanne's "London Secret walks" book. The walks take you thru sections of town and explains some of the history from that area. 

Before we left Leanne walked Coach in Hyde Park and took this picture of a black swan. 

On to the walk, We started from St. James tube station and would be walking around Westminster

The first place we came to was Caxton hall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caxton_Hall

This was a London register office. Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Sellers, Roger Moore, Orson Welles, Joan Collins,  Barry Gibb, and Ringo Starr were married there

Down the street from Caxton Hall was a building that was one of the Bluecoat schools. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluecoat_school

This building was built in 1709 by a local brewer to provide education to the poor in the area.

As we walked down another street we saw this near the entrance of a house. This tool was to extinguish torches.  

This is Coach and I standing in front of the British Supreme Court with Westminster Abby in the back grown. There is a statue of a man standing with a chair in front of the Supreme Court building. Its right behind me, its a statue of Abe Lincoln. There is a replica of this statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago. 

The front of the Supreme Court building.

A view of St. Margret's church with Big Ben in the back ground. St. Margret's is the official church of the house of commons, Winston Churchill was married here.

Next to St. Margret's is Westminster Abby

We have still not gone into this place, but we will soon

We never get tired of seeing the gargoyles, this was a side entrance to the Abby

Around the corner was the Jewel Tower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Tower

Built in 1365 its what is left of the palace of Westminster.
As you can see its a small building with small rooms and not much in them.

Coach was not allowed in so Leanne and I took turns going in.

The look on his face as he wonders if i'm coming back out.

Across the street form the Jewel tower is the Victoria tower 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Tower built in 1860 as a storage for books and documents for the Parliament.  It was known as the Kings tower until Queen Vicky Diamond Jubilee---good to be the Queen.

In the park next to the tower is a statue by Auguste Rodin called The Burghers of Calais. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais

Walking thru one of the many gardens we passed the Buxton memorial fountain 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buxton_Memorial_Fountain

It commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834.

Near the end of the walk we stopped for a pint at a pub near the Thames. The history of this pub ( and they all seem to have some type of history) is it was used by the warden from Millbank prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millbank_Prison

 Millbank prison was a holding area for prisoners to be sent to Australia.  There is now a museum where the prison use to be.

Sunday would be a walk in Regent park and Primrose hill.

Regent park has more soccer fields than i can count, there always seems to be another field with more.  There were still a lot of room for Coach to run. The London Zoo is also in Regent park and Coach was getting all kinds of new smells that he never found before. Luckily there was a gate so he couldn't go visit them.

Primrose hill is not a huge hill but big enough for me. At the top we were rewarded with views of the city. We were told to come here to see the fireworks on new-years eve, but i'm sure it was full of people.

Back down the hill Leanne came upon this flower, i call it the "upside down" flower

This was the flower section of the park, there are flowers all over, this just seemed to have more.

This was a nice section that we had to have Coach on his leash. 

And it was a good thing as we came around the corner and found these guys.

Back at Holland park by our house, kids have jungle gyms, Coach had climbing logs.

A morning view in Holland park. 

And the Peacocks in the park, i was able to get some close up pictures of them.

If we walk in the park and we hear them we usually put Coach on the leash. One time he took off after one and nearly caught it. I figured they couldn't fly with the big tail feathers but they can. 

Leanne took this picture of one in the trees this morning. She heard them but couldn't find them untill she looked up. She said it was 40 or 50 feet up in the tree.

Same picture with a better view of the bird.

Another great week,