St. James Park, etc.

Once I emerged from the War Rooms, blinking in the sunlight, I wandered across the street to St. James Park.

I did not do the whole Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, but I did see several of the markers.  

It was a little surprising to see such a lush green space after seeing only city previously.  

The pelicans are not native to the area, but are descendants of pelicans given to Charles II by Russia.

Charming little cottage

    

Behind all the lovely purple flowers, there's a beehive.

Their ducks don't look like our ducks.  (I'm reminded of the gorgeous ducks I took pictures of in China that I've never seen here, either.)  

There are even swans.

There's a café inside St. James Park, so I stopped for a bit of fish & chips with mushy peas.  

After looking at a park map, I realized I could cross the park and see Buckingham Palace, so I did.  There are lounge chairs for rent on the grass.  I was really so blessed to have such gorgeous weather while I was there.  I was expecting it to be cooler.  

One of the lovely gates to the park.

What's that I spy in the distance?  Oh, that's the Queen Victoria Memorial.  

There it is a bit closer.  

So, as you can see, Buckingham Palace is cordoned off from this side.  But there it is.  At this point, I didn't even really care, so when an electric bike cab pulled into the cul-de-sac, I flagged her down.

This is me, enjoying not walking from the Palace back to my Trafalgar Square hotel.  

It's only a mile, but I was absolutely getting my steps in that day already.

Of course, we passed more statues and memorials along the way.

My shopping loot from the morning.  Postcards, book, pin, soda.  Actually, I'm pretty sure there were a couple t-shirts for my boys from the war rooms that didn't make it into this picture.  

Remember how I said horses pop out of those arches?  There you go.  

Parliament

And another shot of Big Ben.