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Private Walks In June - 2013

16/7/2013

I know we're already half way through July, but I thought I'd just post a little thing about some of the 'private walks' I did in June. Just in case you're wondering, I do my regular 'pay what you want' walks around London most weekends, but during the week I also do private tours for groups, families, couples, birthdays, work outings and that kind of thing. They're pretty much tailor made to each individual group, so I might meet them at their hotel, or at a station or somewhere-else and we explore London, based on what they want to see or their interests and stuff like that.

It would seem that in June, we spent a bit of time hanging around with the Queen's Guard at St James's Palace and Horse Guards. They're quite easy to hang around with as they tend to stand really, really still. The last photo is of Lisa and her family outside Buckingham Palace. Although you can't see any guards, there was actually hundreds of them passing by on horse back, as we stumbled in to the midst of the dress rehearsal for 'Trooping The Colour', the week before The Queen's official birthday. Since the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, these guys and now girls have been responsible for guarding the Royal palaces.

The Queen's Guard

We did do other things aside from taking photos with guards. I did a couple of walks around east London, which inevitably involves a bit of street art. Shyam was over on business from Canada and staying near Liverpool Street so wanted to explore around that area. You can see him next to Richard Rogers Lloyd's building which was finished in 1986 and was said to look like someone had dropped an oil rig in to the City of London. Despite the modern appearance of the building, the company themselves have a colourful 325 year history which can be traced back to a 17th century coffee house ... called Edward Lloyd's. Nazatul and her family are pictured in Trafalgar Square with Nelson's Column behind them.

The photos below show Penny Bond and her crew from Canada in St James's park and John and Susan on London Bridge. Kim and Ciera are standing by some 17th century waterman's steps, which now stand quite far from the Thames, but once was a gateway from the river to a mansion called York House, which belonged to George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, who had the steps built ... hence the nearby Villiers Street. Mehul and Neha from the States are relaxing in one of Westminster Abbey's cloisters.

So, as you can see ... we managed to explore quite a bit of London.

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London At Night

14/12/2011

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Bits of london at night

Here are some photos of London at night. Not because I'm a photographer of any note, or can take night-esque photos, but purely because I really love London at night ... as well as most other times of day. No doubt I'll do more at some point.