Pageantry. Pure and simple. Interesting to watch? Not really. Reason to watch? None except to say you did it while in London. If you happen to see it while glancing around Buckingham Palace, great. Although I would not go out of my way to see the pageantry of some people coming in and some people going out.

Buckingham Palace

Since members of the Royal family do live there, you can only tour specific parts of the palace. And since this is the off season of London travel, even those limited location are off limits. That being said our visit to Buckingham was more or less to see the changing of the guards and to get some pictures of the exterior. Pretty uneventful.

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a shopping area filled with everything from street vendors selling cheap souvenirs and chicken sandwiches to high end brand stores.  All throughout our travel in London we were looking for some local art and were coming up empty.  At Covent Garden we came across a stand of watercolor arts by John Pester- he was selling his own art.  He had some pretty fantastic stuff and we walked away with a few prints

London Eye

This is one of those really touristy, overpriced things to do in London- and honestly, if we hadn’t had a 2for1 coupon for this I don’t think we would have done at.  At more than $30/person it’s expensive!!!  But it was $30 for both of us because of the coupon so we went for it!  It was a beautiful, clear day (God always blesses our weather so abundantly when we travel!) and the views were amazing from the Eye.  I really enjoyed being able to see London’s skyline and especially St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance, it was great to see it from another point of view.

Phantom of the Opera

After dinner we headed over to Her Majesty’s Theatre to see the Phantom of the Opera. New York and London are considered the best of the best in the theatre world, but based off my recollection of the first time I saw the Phantom at the Orpheum theater I did not perceive to large of a difference in the quality of the production. Amy disagreed stating that since we saw it so long ago at the Orpheum (roughly 7 years) that to compare it to the London production was not even relevant. That aside it was a very well done production with the leads roles playing by very talented vocalists. I would definitely recommend taking in a showing of the Phantom of the Opera should you find yourself in London.