This morning we were up early to make sure we were organised for our visit to Buckingham Palace. We got downstairs at about 7:30 am and enjoyed a lovely breakfast.

Breakfast.
Breakfast.

We left the hotel around 9:00 am for the short walk to the Royal Mews, the meeting point for the Buckingham Palace tour. The organisation was pretty slick and we got through security and into the palace quite quickly. The tour was very enjoyable. Photography is not permitted inside the palace, so we had to wait until we got outside to get our first photo.

Giving the people what they want from the royal balcony!
Giving the people what they want from the royal balcony!

After the tour of the staterooms in the palace we stopped for a cup of tea and a snack of scones, royal cake, and a shortbread marmalade sandwich!

A slice of royal cake.
A slice of royal cake.
Keith enjoying a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread marmalade sandwich.
Keith enjoying a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread marmalade sandwich.

Next up was the walk through the queen’s 39-acre private garden, which is (unsurprisingly) the largest private garden in London. Astonishingly, the garden is maintained by a small team of only nine gardeners. There is a wonderful variety of plants in the garden and we enjoyed learning about all aspects of the garden and its history. The serpentine path through the garden is flanked by a beautiful cover of plane trees, beginning with a pair of interleaving plane trees named Victoria and Albert that were planted more than 150 years ago. Surprisingly, photography was also not allowed in the private garden!

Flowers in the public area of the Buckingham Palace gardens.
Flowers in the public area of the Buckingham Palace gardens.
Looking back to Buckingham Palace across the lawn area.
Looking back to Buckingham Palace across the lawn area.

After the garden tour finished we exited the palace grounds and walked around to the front of the palace to take a few more photos.

Keith outside Buckingham Palace.
Keith outside Buckingham Palace.

By now it was mid-afternoon. We considered heading back to our hotel but decided instead to walk through Hyde Park to Mayfair for a bit of shopping.

The Victoria Memorial
The Victoria Memorial

Hyde Park.
Hyde Park.

We had a lovely walk through Hyde Park, even finding time to sit and relax for a few minutes.

Relaxing in Hyde Park.
Relaxing in Hyde Park.

Our first shopping stop was Selfridges, possibly our favourite department store in the world. We had a personal shopper to take us around but we didn’t really find anything that took our fancy. After about an hour and a half in Selfridges we wandered back through the smaller shops of Mayfair, easily wiling away the rest of afternoon. It was then time to turn our attention to dinner. We opted for Sexy Fish, which was a great mix of fun and fabulous food.

Dinner.
Dinner.

Walking back from dinner through Mayfair we saw the usual array of incredible exotic cars. Most of them have Kuwait or Qatar plates and a lot of them have parking tickets affixed to the windscreen (although you get the impression the owners couldn’t care less about parking tickets!).

A Ford GT, parked in Mayfair.
A Ford GT, parked in Mayfair.

We got back to the hotel around 7:30 pm. We hadn’t had dessert at dinner so we decided to have a cup of tea and a bite of the little tarts that the hotel staff had left in our room. Very delicious.

Dessert in our hotel room.
Dessert in our hotel room.

It’s now time for bed. We haven’t yet decided what we’re doing tomorrow so we might just have a slightly slower day. We’ve covered over 30km on foot in the last two days so it’s probably time for a more leisurely pace tomorrow. Let’s see what the day brings.