July 22 (Wednesday) Buckingham Palace, Queen’s Guards, Wicked

Another light day with a stop for matinee tickets to see Wicked (the prequel and sequel to the Wizard of Oz, as told from the Wicked Witch of the West's side of things).  Then we thought we’d head to St. James Park for our daily walk.  As we neared Buckingham Palace it was obvious that something was afoot as people were lined up 10+deep in front of the palace fence and 3 deep along some of the roads.  It turned out that the Queen's Guards (accompanied by a military band) were marching from the Barracks to the Palace for the Changing of the Guards.  The red uniforms were flashy and the black bearskin hats were pretty awesome.

We didn’t stay for the actual changing of the guard as we were too late to get close enough to see anything.  However, we did hear the band playing from time to time while we were walking around the park.

From the park we had views of both Buckingham Palace...

 

and the White Hall area (governmental offices) of London.

 

There were also a lot of water fowl around the lake, including the coots with their really odd feet.

We had lunch in another old pub and then headed back to the theater for the show.  Wicked turned out to be a really great musical.  Highly recommended.  This was our fifth show while in London (sixth if you count the organ concert).  Love those shows.