Trafalgar Square and St. Paul’s Cathedral

After our adventure down at St. James’s Park watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, we stopped at Trafalgar Square for lunch at The Admiralty. Anthony was in his element, as his two passions are good beer and good food. We had steak and ale pie with London Pride beer and the food was delicious! The whole restaurant looks like a sailing ship, and we got to eat on the quarterdeck, looking down at the bar and general seating area. The view out to Trafalgar Square was pretty impressive, too, and we totally enjoyed our hour spent there.

When lunch was over, and Anthony had charmed our waitress into letting him keep the London Pride pint glass, we hopped back on the coach and Steve drove us down into the financial district of London, into The City of London, which has it’s own police, parliament, and governance. From here, Steve dropped us off at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Emily walked us all around the Cathedral. What an amazing place!

At 1,400 years old, St. Paul’s has had to be rebuilt 5 times. The only thing I really knew about St. Paul’s was that it was where the Bird Lady in Mary Poppins sells her crumbs for tuppence a bag. When Steve heard me singing that song when we returned to the bus, he informed me that it was now illegal to feed the pigeons, and the City has trained hawks and falcons to fly over both Trafalgar Square and St. Paul’s church yard to keep the birds away! So there went that childhood dream…(ha!) The Cathedral is still so beautiful and well worth the time we spent walking around there and reading about the history. Since it was Sunday, we didn’t go into the church because the services are 3 hours long and they don’t allow you to leave once you have entered!

St. Paul
Emily discussing the difference between St. Paul’s Cathedral and St. Paul’s Church next door.
Beautiful
View of St. Paul’s from the Millennium Bridge

From St. Paul’s, we walked down to the Thames River and checked out the Millennium Bridge. It was super windy and cold, so it felt like quite the adventure walking across!