Changing of the Guards

 Changing of the Guards

For our first activity today, we went to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We took the Tube to Trafalgar Square, so that we could walk through the official front gate of the palace, which was surprisingly very far from the actual palace. 
St James's Palace
Before going to the barracks, we went to St. James's Palace to try to see the old guard's band warming up. Unfortunately, due to the weather, they had decided not to warm up. However, it was still interesting to see St. James's Palace, which was definitely less ornate than Buckingham, but that is probably because it was built about 150 years later. We also got to see where some of the guards would be for hours at a time, only allowed to stand or pace back and forth (the little black boxes on either side of the archways).




London Eye across St James's Park

Once we realized the band probably wouldn't be warming up outside, we started walking across St James's Park towards the barracks, where the new guard was getting ready to start the procession. On the way, I got a good picture (to the right) of the London Eye over the pond at St James's Park. I also liked the ducks in this picture, because they have some different looking ducks here compared to at home. 






Finally, we made it to where everyone was gathered to watch the guards, and we found a place along the fence with a good view. At first, they were just standing there in the classic tall furry hat, but soon something started to happen. The band began to play march-y music, and then all the guards started to move. I was a tiny bit disappointed that everyone wasn't perfectly perfectly in sync, as you can see in the video (click here; Blogger wouldn't upload it), but I might have been expecting North Korea levels of synchronicity and it's maybe good that these guards aren't held to that high of a standard. We then moved more towards the palace, and saw the whole march. They were lead by a police horse and an Irish wolfhound, because the new guard was Irish. I really enjoyed the marching band music, but it was a pretty short parade. Overall, it was fascinating to see how much time and energy the royals/UK military put into this, because at least part of it is just pageantry, and isn't necessary for protecting the king (who apparently wasn't even in the palace). 















Comments

  1. Juli BergmanMarch 10, 2025 at 3:31 PM

    Will you ride the London Eye? I enjoyed the video of the changing of the guard, particularly the music (and the dog!).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElsaMarch 11, 2025 at 12:40 PM

      No, I don't think so we walked past it the other day and it was moving so slowly it would be boring after you've already made it to the top and had to go all the way back down. I'm glad you liked the video!

      Delete

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