Travel and Vacations

Travel Destination: London Buckingham Palace, England

Story Published on October 6, 2008 ⋅  Email this Story ⋅  Print this Story ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

A popular and exciting place for tourists across the world to come and visit is England. England has lush and beautiful countrysides, historic cities, cheap London hotels and many other interesting places to visit. One famous landmark worth seeing is Hadrian’s Wall in the North East of England, which dates back to AD122. However, the first port of call for most tourists is London.

The city of London has a plethora of unusual and exciting places to visit. Whether you plan to spend all your vacation time in London or just a few days, one will never be short of something or somewhere to go. In other countries all over the world most people have visited their captial city, but not in England. There is a large proportion of the British population who have never visited London, but strangely enough it is usually top of the list for visitors from other countries.

London is full of magnificent ancient and historic buildings, and is famous for it’s incredible churches and cathedrals. Everyone will of heard of St. Paul’s Cathedral, this is the Anglican Cathedral where the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer married. An exciting new attraction which attracts over 3.5 million visitors a year is the ‘London Eye’ or ‘Millenium Wheel’ as it was originally known. However, one must see visitor attraction is Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace is England’s most famous Royal residence, being home to the Queen. The palace is positioned in the centre of London which makes it a natural focus for tourists. The daily pageant of ‘Changing of the Guard’ is fascinating to watch and quintessentially English.

The palace began its’ days as the city residence of the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke commissioned the building of the house in 1703. The house was later sold to King George III, who bought ‘Buckingham House’ for his wife, Queen Charlotte.

Buckingham Palace has had many alterations and additions over the years. King George IV who inherited the house in 1820, had a passion for the arts and was responsible for turning the palace into what it is today. It was George IV who employed John Nash to extend and refurbish the palace, the largest addition being three extra wings.

The best known works of the architect Ashton Webb include his works at Buckingham Palace. He designed the memorial to Queen Victoria outside of Buckingham Palace. The centrepiece of his design was a statue of the Queen sitting on a marble white pillar. The Mall was redesigned into a processional way leading up to the statue. The pink surface of the road here symbolises an enormous red carpet unrolled in front of the monarch.

The Queen has many other residences besides Buckingham Palace. Some of the residences are ‘official’ residences and there are some which are ‘private’. One other famous, official royal residence in London is St. Jame’s Palace and once upon a time was the primary London royal residence. A favourite private residence with the Queen is Balmoral in Scotland. The Queen enjoys a relaxing holiday at Balmoral every August, and was there when she heard the grave news of Diana, Princess of Wales’, sad and untimely passing.

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