As Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s Wedding Nears, Girls That Roam Has Some Suggestions To Feel Royal In London
by Heather Cassell
Princess Diana was the “People’s Princess,” so it only seems fitting in the 20th year following her tragic death that her youngest son, Prince Henry of Wales, better known as Prince Harry, became engaged to American actress Meghan Markle November 27, 2017.
Royal watchers have been delighted by the announcement of Prince Harry’s, 33, the wild redhead who hasn’t quite ever towed the prim and proper royal line, engagement to Meghan, a 36-year old biracial divorcée who is best-known for her role in the USA Network’s “Suits.”
They are even tickled pinker by his touching custom designed engagement ring using a diamond from Botswana, a country close to his heart, accompanied by two diamonds from his mother the late Princess Diana of Wales collection.
Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding is 12 p.m. GMT, May 19 at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle. It’s an intimate chapel where Harry was christened three months after his birth and allows for only 800 guests to attend the ceremony. Buckingham Palace also announced that 2,640 members of the public were invited by Harry and Meghan to attend the wedding in a special section.
Following their nuptials, Harry and Meghan will ride in a carriage procession in one of five Ascot Landaus in the Royal Mew at 1 p.m. GMT to their wedding reception to Queen Elizabeth II’s lunchtime reception at St. George’s Hall at St. George’s Chapel where they will greet 600 people. A smaller reception of 200 of Harry and Meghan’s closest friends and family will be held later in the evening.
Onlookers can get off the tube at Jubilee Station and walk as close as possible to the Windsor Castle to stake their place along the guarded barricades to get a glimpse of the royal occasion.
If you’re heading to London for the modern-day nuptial, here’s how you can enjoy the city like a royal.
The Crown Jewels at the Tower of London
The rooms filled with the royal jewels, a collection of 23,578 gemstones and pieces collected for more than 600 years, is impressive. The Crown Jewels are historic relics filled with symbolism and are sacred in Britain. There are 11 principle pieces used during coronation ceremonies: a coronation crown and a state crown, an orb, scepter, swords, spurs, ring, bracelets, and more. These pieces are still used for royal ceremonies today as they have been since 1066 when Edward the Confessor founded Westminster Abbey, the church which has hosted the coronation ceremonies ever since.
Only once during the royal family’s history have the Crown Jewels at the Tower been destroyed. That was during the country’s four-year civil war, 1642 through 1651. The jewels were remade for Charles II’s coronation in 1661.
The Crown Jewels have attracted more than 30 million royal watchers and curious viewers who stream by the glistening gems enclosed in protected glass cases at the Jewel House at the Tower.
The Towers are also home to Britain’s royal history stretching back Edward I (1272 – 1307) and his father Henry III (1216 – 1272) who built the Lanthorn Tower. Each tower encapsulates important historical periods as well as the way of life for the Royals through the centuries.
In the White Tower, visitors can see Queen Elizabeth I’s armor. Queen Elizabeth I is the only woman to have armor because there were no female knights and queens never wore armor before the suite of armor was created for her during Britain’s war against Spain in 1789. When Britain defeated Spain Queen Elizabeth I’s armor was displayed in the Spanish Armoury, rather than along with the other knights’ armors in the Tower. The placement was to remember England’s defeat of the Spanish Armanda, according to a plaque that in the Tower. Today, only Elizabeth’s carved and painted wooden head survives.
Enjoy High Tea
The royal warranted The Goring Hotel as the Royal families favorite place to enjoy high tea. Reservations are difficult to come by, but if you are lucky, you’ve got a seat at the place where Kate Middleton spent her last night as a single woman.
If you can’t get into The Goring, teatime at Harrod’s The Georgian is very good too and you can get some shopping in at the famous luxury department store and along Brompton Road in Knightsbridge in London. Located on the 4th floor of the world-famous Harrod’s department store is The Georgian, an elegant dining room in the art-deco edifice erected following an 1883 fire that destroyed the original store, which sold tea and groceries, that opened on Knightsbridge in 1849. The fire gave way to an elegant building that rose from the ashes designed by architect Charles William Stephens it is a blend of Art Nouveau windows, sweeping floors filled with the finest things from household décor to clothing behind the terracotta tiles adorned with cherubs at the entrances. Topping off the building beneath its baroque-style dome is The Georgian, which opened in 1911 to commemorate the coronation of King George V.
Ever since Harrod’s became famous for the fashionable wealthy and royals to shop and dine. Once owned by Mohamad Al Fayed, the father of Dodi Al Fayed who was dating Princess Diana and died in the fatal crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. Mohamad erected a memorial to the couple in the store, reported the BBC.
It is there that my friends and I enjoyed high tea with finger sandwiches filled with cream cheese and chives, smoked salmon, chicken salad, crumpets, scones, and pastries along with Champagne during a leisurely late afternoon nearly two years ago. The afternoon treat has become an entrenched English custom since 1840 when Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, became hungry during the late afternoon hours before the evening meal.
View the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace
Queen Elizabeth has an extensive collection of art that is put on rotating display at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. Currently exhibiting is “Queen Victoria in Paris” March 24 through June 24 and “Canaletto and the Art of Venice” starting May 11 and running through October 21.
In 2016, I enjoyed “Maria Merian’s Butterflies” when I visited the gallery. Maria was one of the most famous natural scientists of her age. The exhibit of Maria’s drawings painted in watercolor and bodycolor on vellum have been in the royal collection since 1810 when King George III acquired the pieces from a famous physician Richard Mead as a part of his scientific library, according to the gallery.
Explore the gallery located on the left side of the palace along Buckingham Palace Road and buy some of the palace’s Brut Champagne to enjoy at one of London’s fine restaurants.
The Globe Theatre
See a Shakespearian show at The Globe Theatre and take the tour to learn about theater in Elizabethan times. The original theater was built in 1576 in Shoreditch, but it was later moved across the Thames River to Southwark, on the south bank of the river that is now known as Bankside, by a company of actors, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who all owned shares in the theater.
The Globe was quite successful and home to most of Shakespeare’s plays until a fire burned it to the ground in 1613. Later in 1642, the Globe was shut down by the Puritans the same as all the cities other theaters were shuttered too. The theater was destroyed two years later in 1644 to make room for tenements. For centuries the theater’s actual whereabouts was unknown until remnants of its foundations were discovered beneath the car park of Anchor Terrace on Park Street in 1989. Interestingly, the car park’s foundations replicated the shape of The Globe. Unfortunately, archaeologists can’t investigate further due to the 18th century terrace being listed by the National Heritage List for England.
The current theater was built by American actor, director and producer Sam Wanamaker is about 225 yards from the site of the original Globe Theatre in the mid-1990s. It is the first thatched roof building permitted by London city officials and houses the few remaining artifacts and replicas of costumes from the time of Shakespeare’s plays.
The tour takes visitors through the history of the theater, the company of actors, costume design, women performers, and much more.
Currently playing through the end of August are “Hamlet” and “As You Like It.”
Dine at Dalloway Terrace
Who can forget the subtle but immeasurable scene in Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” when mystery and speculation encapsulated everything thing in slow motion when a car suspected to be carrying the Queen stopped on Bond Street blocked by an omnibus.
The Dalloway Terrace is an elegant restaurant located at The Bloomsbury Hotel in Bloomsbury is a nod to Virginia and her famous character Mrs. Dalloway. The terrace was peaceful during my girlfriend’s and my early lunch. We were immediately seated and handed hats to protect our skin from the sun while we dined, a custom during the spring and summer.
My girlfriend and I started with the Dorset Crab on Toast before dining on an oh so English, but oh so American burger, the Bloomsbury Burger, with a side of Grilled Asparagus. We sipped the Nyetimber Classic Cuvee from England as we enjoyed our afternoon meal. It was a lovely lunch before we took a walk around London’s literary center: Bloomsbury where Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Vita Sackville-West, and the rest of the Bloomsbury Group, as they were called, lived.
Stroll through The Royal Parks
London is filled with eight sprawling parks, such as Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, St. James Park and many others, but these three are perhaps the most famous. Kensington Gardens and St. James Park surround Buckingham Palace on two sides. The gardens, which is home to Kensington Palace and was once a part of Hyde Park, spread out across 265 acres offering visitors more than simply green space to picnic and exercise. The garden also offers art for all ages at the Serpentine Galleries and in the Diana Playground where kids play on the huge wooden pirate ship, run through a sensory trail and play on sculptures inspired by Peter Pan, and history at Kensington Palace and at the Albert Memorial.
Hyde Park spans 350 acres in the heart of London. The park is a common gathering place for demonstrations to concerts and festivals. Here visitors can enjoy the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain.
Surrounded by Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and Whitehall, St. James Park is where the flowers bloom in splendid colors around its 57 acres.
I assure you that you will have a royal good time taking part in any of these activities.
Book your royal London adventure with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
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