HMS Belfast → Leicester Square → National Gallery → Trafalgar Square → Chinatown → Soho → Oxford Street

1. St James's Park: You can truly enjoy on Sunday when they are closed to traffic. Inside the park you will see St. James's Palace that was originally built on the site of a lepers' hospital. Just before his execution Charles I decided to spend his last night there. It is the home of Duke and Duchess of Kent as well as offices for various other royals. In the case of this palace you will not be able to go inside, apart from Chapel Royal that is open for services only. Short walk from the Palace you will emerge on to Parliament Square and see splendor of the Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

   St James's Park, Lodon Eye				Wide-angle Lens

    

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2. Buckingham Palace: Popularly known as "Buck House", has served as the monarch's permanent London residence only since the accession of Victoria. It began its days in 1702 as the Duke of Buckingham's city residence, built on the site of a notorious brothel, and was sold by the duke's son to George III in 1762.

   The building was overhauled by Nash in the late 1820s for the Prince Regent, and again by Aston Webb in time for George V's coronation in 1913. It is the largest private house in London - it has more than 660 rooms. The palace is actually back-to-front: the side you look at from the Mall is the back of the building.

   Back View

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3. Changing of Guards: There are actually two ceremonies at separate places. The more popular venue is Buckingham Palace where at 11.30am on most days The Queen's Guard, accompanied by a band, arrives from Wellington Barracks having marched via Bird Cage Walk to the palace.

   The ceremony lasts about 40 min. and takes place inside the railings of the palace. A separate ceremony also takes place daily throughout the year at Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall at 11am Mon-Sat and 10am on Sun. Here The Queen's Life Guard - ride in to perform the ceremony via Hyde Park Corner, Constitution Hill and The Mall.

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4. Tower of London: Overlooks the river at the eastern boundary of the old city walls. Chiefly famous as a place of imprisonment and death, it has variously been used as a royal residence, armoury, mint, menagerie, observatory and - function it still serves - a safe-deposit box for the Crown Jewels.

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5. Tower Bridge: One of the most famous landmarks in London and just over a hundred years old, the Tower Bridge with its twin drawbridges, or bascules, each weighing about 1,000 tons have been raised more then half a million times since it was built. It takes only 90 seconds for the bascules to be raised with electric motors which replaced the old steam engines. From Tower Bridge you can view HMS Belfast, an 11,500-ton cruiser that opened the bombardment of the Normandy coast on D-Day. The closest tube stations for those two are, Tower Hill and London Bridge. Open from: daily 10am-6:30pm; Nov-March 10am-5:15pm.

   Wide-angle Lens		Night scene

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6. HMS Belfast: is a cruiser. She was launched in March 1938 and served throughout the Second World War, playing a leading part in the destruction of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape and in the Normandy Landings.

   After the war, she supported United Nations forces in Korea and remained in service with the Royal Navy until 1965. In 1971 she was saved for the nation as a unique and historic reminder of Britain’s naval heritage in the first half of the twentieth century.

   Moored on the River Thames, HMS Belfast is Europe's only surviving big gun armoured warship from the Second World War.

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7. Trafalgar Square: where the statue of Admiral Lord Nelson dominates the square 167 feet above it. Built to commemorate his naval victory in 1805 it is a central piece of this magnificent area. Trafalgar Square laid out around 1830 is a popular venue for political rallies and used to be a home ground for thousands of pigeons. Recent ruling in banning of the pigeon food sellers to be there is going to certainly clean that patch of London of health hazards and of its long history of feeding them and taking photos with them. Each year people from all parts of London concentrate there to celebrate New Year but it looks as if that is also going disappear as unruly behaviour and pollution of noise is endangering this occasion. Four majestic bronze lions, each 20 feet long and 11 feet high guard the base of column and the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields dating from 1721 makes it popular destination for tourists to come and see it all.

   Statue of Admiral Lord Nelson	Bronze Lion	National Gallery

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8. Chinatown: Located in between Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue, is a self-contained jumble of shops, cafes and restaurants that makes up one of London's most distinct and popular ethnic enclaves. Gerrard Street, Chinatown's main drag, has been endowed with ersatz touches - telephone kiosks rigged out as pagodas and fake Oriental gates - and few of a London's 65,000 Chinese actually live in the three small blocks of Chinatown.

   The Chinese New Year celebrations, instigated here in 1973, are a community-based affair, drawing in thousands of Chinese for the Sunday nearest to New Year's Day (late Jan or early Feb). Huge papier-mache lions dance through the streets to a cacophony of fireworks devouring cabbages hung from the upper floors by strings pinned with money.

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