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Weather: Cloudy in the morning then rainy in the afternoon
Lunch: Albert (pub)
Dinner: Pub near the station (I forgot the name)
Stayed at Luna and Simone Hotel, Westminster

We took a bus to the Westminster Abby, and spent quite a bit of time walking around the area and taking pictures during the morning before entering the Abby, because we could feel the eminent rain in the air.

Westminster Abby was an interesting place, where all the important events for the royal family, dead or alive, happen. Coronations as well as funerals take place here. We found the tombs for Edward the confessor, Queen Elizabeth I and Mary I, Henry VII; Henry VIII…It was very interesting to find the tomb of Mary Stewart here. After spending a few days in the British Isles, those names became something more familiar and interesting, and started making sense.

Off course, it was very interesting to find many authors’ names at the Poet’s corner and to find a big alter for Newton which had become very famous after the “da Vinci code.”

Actually the small and big cloisters that were ignored by many tourists were very beautiful and refreshing in the rain.

After a very late lunch in the pub nearby, we walked to the Buckingham palace. In the cold rain, the queen’s residence looked uninviting, and the littered fountain needed cleaning. The guards looked very cold and sad. Even though the place was exactly the same as the photo I remember seeing when I was age 13 in the centerfold of the magazine I was then subscribing to, it lacked the grandeur, maybe because of the weather.

Since the bus tickets we bought yesterday were good for 48 hours, we hopped in the bus that went around the city. It was the only thing we could do in the rainy evening. The top of the double Decker bus was only half covered, but we rode on the top anyway. It was quite cold but the evening scenes were quite beautiful.

Dinner was at a pub near the Victoria station. I am getting addicted to British ale.