Walking through Westminster

Westminister Palace, aka the Houses of Parliament

Westminster is the heart of England's government.  We'd already been to the Abbey, but on Monday we took a walk around the area to see the Houses of Parliament and the rest of the government.  The group also saw the changing of the Horse Guards, but our family had snuck off to take more pictures before they got over there.  It gave us the opportunity to take pictures from the front of the Houses. As an added bonus, I got to take my leadership class into the House of Lords for the afternoon session.

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We all tried to get a picture of the red bus in front of Big Ben, but Hope got the good one.  It's tough to get really good pictures of Parliament because it is just so large and there is very little open space in the area.

In the 1700s, the Crown Jewels were moved to the tower of London, but before that they were kept in the Jewel Tower.  The tower dates from around the 1400s.

During the 14th century, Edward III beseiged the French city of Calais.  When the city finally reached the point of starvation, they asked for terms.  Edward promised to spare the city if the six leading citizens would give themselves up--expecting to be killed.  But according to the story, Edward's wife asked him to spare the burghers to bring good luck to their new son.  Rodin created the sculpture below to honor the burghers.  It sits in the park in front of the palace.

The view from the bridge:



I took my leadership class (and a few extras) back to Parliament on Monday afternoon.  We had the opportunity to go to the House of Lords.  Unforunately, the only place we could take pictures was in Westminster Hall, which was historically cool but not nearly as gorgeous as the rest of the building.  Westminster Hall actually the oldest part of the Houses of Parliament.  It was the only part not destroyed in the fire in the 1800s.  The House of Lords was pretty interesting.  It began with what they call 'question time' where the members can ask pre-arranged questions and then follow-ups of the government officers.  This was the time where events looked a lot like movies--cries of 'hear, hear' or grumblings when someone said something the other side found unbelievable.  After question time, they moved into discussion and debate related to the details of amendments to the new national health care bill.  That was much harder to follow because of the narrowly defined elements of the bill. 

Westminster Hall

Big Ben from inside the Parliament grounds

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