Day 149 - How to miss the crowds?

London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

Westminster Abey

First stop was the London Tourist Centre to collect the London Pass we had ordered online. We bought a 3 day pass that lets you in without additional charge to 50 of the main attractions in London (not that it's possible to see 50 places in three days).

As the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace was at 11:30am, we thought we would be smart and try to see the nearby Royal Mews beforehand, expecting that it would be very crowded later. Luckily we were right and we managed to see royal cars and carriages, as well as horses all decked out pulling those fancy carriages around the courtyard.

We walked back to Buckingham Palace around 11:20am. We found that the crowds were quite a few people deep and it was very difficult to see anything. On top of that the whole thing was incredibly slow and boring, 20 minutes was about enough for us so we headed off to view the paintings and jewels in the Queen's Gallery.

From there we walked over to Westminster Abbey and were shocked to see the length of the queues, fortunately our queue moved fairly quickly. The Abbey was quite a sight, it was amazing to see the burial places of the various kings and queens, as well as memorials to other famous people.

Leicester Square

We followed this up with a visit to St Paul's Cathedral, also very impressive inside and out, before going to Leicester Square and squeezing in an hour or so at the National Gallery at the end of the day before everything closed.