London's Royal Westminster: An Abbey, Four Palaces, & Two Parks

Westminster is the area of London most associated with the British Royal family. Let Stephen show you round. We start at Westminster Abbey, where all but 2 monarchs have been crowned since 1066, where numerous Kings and Queens are buried, and where Queen Elizabeth II had her main funeral service recently. We move on to Westminster Hall dating from 1097. This was part of the Royal Palace of Westminster which later became the Houses of Parliament. It survived a fire of 1834 and wartime bombing. It is used for Royal occasions still - most recently for Queen Elizabeth's lying in state. We move on to the Banqueting House completed in 1622 which is the most significant surviving part of Whitehall Palace. It contains a magnificent ceiling painting of King James I by the painter Rubens. and is where the first King Charles was executed in 1649. Crossing Horse Guards Parade, where we can get up close to the mounted guards , we enter St James's  Park once the private gardens of the monarch. We stop by St James' Palace which has been a working Royal Palace continuously since the 1530s. It is a private place but has two old chapels which are the only parts the public can visit. Then onto Green Park, so called because it has no formal flower beds and finally reaching Buckingham Palace, official London home of the British monarch for almost 200 years. This is a route one can take in real life and takes in most of the Royal sights in Westminster. It also closely follows the route Queen Elizabeth's funeral procession took recently.