LondonPass Day 4 of 6

Thursday February 14th,

Day 4 of 6 day of the LondonPass adventure. We started off the day going to the Churchhill Cabinet & War Rooms museum. The bunkers itself are located in a basement of a ministry building not too far from Downing Street. It is quite obvious what the building is because there is a giant concrete skirt around the base of the structure. Upon entering the museum you immediately descend down into “bunkers” and see the Cabinet meeting room. The room itself is still adorned with original furniture. The interesting thing about the “bunkers” is that it really isn’t a bunker from an architectural reinforcement point of view. It was basically a basement with a thick concrete reinforced ceiling, which all experts thought would collapse if the building took a direct hit. Nonetheless, the facility itself was quite neat and still in a 1940’s state. You could still walk down the halls and see signs posted above doors for prime minister’s quarters, map rooms, or communications. Not all of the bunkers were available for viewing but we were able to see a substantial amount. It seemed like one half of the bunkers had a museum dedicated to Churchill. It covered his entire life: from childhood to death and could easily take half a day to properly take in. The most amazing part of the museum was the preserved state of the map room. All the original maps were there: the ones that outlined conquered Europe and the big one that tracked all unit movements across 2/3rds of the world. There must’ve been million of push pin holes in that map. See photo. I could go on forever….so see it for yourself. Next stop…Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner. The main messages of the Apsley House were these: it is considered #1 London because if entering the city from the west in the 18th century it was the first house you saw, it is still the Duke of Wellington’s residence, and the original Duke of Wellington (Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley) bought the place and never let you forget his victory at the Battle of the Waterloo. In fact, he had annual dinners at the place to commemorate the victory. Baron Apsley originally built the house in the late 18th century. The house itself also contained a huge amount of china and table settings which were all gifts to the Duke of Wellington’s amazingly lucky triumph in the fields of battle against Napolean. The house was obviously quite spacious but never let you forget about the Field Marshall’s victory at Waterloo. Buckingham Palace was right down the way from the house so we walked over there to see the Queen’s Gallery. We stopped at a little café along the way to buy a huge jacket potato. We shared it. The Queen’s Gallery itself is inside Buckingham Palace but on the south side. To be honest I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again. It basically contains a set of 17th century commissioned paintings which I reckon are out of favor with the Queen and thus relegated to public display. That is pretty much it for the day. Thus far we are enjoying the LondonPass and all that it has to offer. Tomorrow: London Tower, London Bridge experience, Medieval Banquet and a stop by GoldCrest for me. Woot!