Whitehall area around 11am. We walked in a very, very cold London to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. A little too expensive for a museum, we moved on down Whitehall Street to the Horses' Guard Parade Grounds and had our photos taken with what looked like Her Royal Majesty's 12-16 year old guards on horseback. Then through the archways to the largest open space in London, the actual Parade Grounds. This large pebble landscape is next to the very modest home of the Prime Minister and backs up to St. James Park. The lovely stretch of green, complete with joggers, fountains and swans, looked like a small stretch of Central Park. 
Walking on, we reached Westminster Abbey where for 10 pounds and less than a ten minute wait, we were treated to some of the most impressive architecture we've ever seen. The Abbey, still a working church, is the gravesite and memorial to royal subjects and contributors to art, literature, politics and even science. In Poet's Corner, most people paid attention to the memorials of Dickens, Keats and W.H. Auden, but missed the crypt of Goeffrey Chaucer behind them. We moved outside into the Cloisters (photo coming soon) and into the narthex, lighting a candle and asking a very polite guide where the memorial to Sir Isaac Newton might be. Interestingly, the globe and sculpture memorial stands above his grave and nearby is the barely noticable tomb of Charles Darwin.
After Westminster Abbey, we walked around the Whitehall area a little more and viewed the London Eye, Big Ben and Parliament. "Look Kids - Big Ben....Parliament" Clark Griswold.
Back up Whitehall Street to the Silver Cross (a traditional English pub) for lunch of fish & chips and tempura battered chicken. And of course, beer. Strongbow Cider for me and an IPA and a Bombadier for W. The second one was free as they ran out 3/4 of the way into W's pour. There was a half hour wait on food and only one bartender. When I asked politely if they were understaffed, the unflappable bartender replied, "No - only undermanaged." We smirked as we watched a French family yell at the staff about the slow service. It seems as if half of the French population is here on holiday as that is the main language we heard at the Abbey and at local restaurants and shops.
By the time we reached Trafalgar Square, it was nearly sundown at 4pm. We wandered through and took pictures before entering the National Gallery. The crush of people inside this free museum was incredible. And they kep closing gallery after gallery, making it even more crowded. We did find some respite in the basement at the Manet to Picasso Exhibition. W really liked the work of Pissaro, Manet and Degas. We were waiting around for the free 6:30pm tour and asked at the information desk about it. Good thing we did as we found that it was cancelled (and the portions of galleries shutting down) due to 'industrial action' by the staff. English politeness for a strike. Now we understood why curiously no one could tell us which galleries were closed or why?
We left the National Gallery around 6pm and spent the next several hours criss-crossing through central London and the West End, stopping at the Times Square craziness that is Picadilly Circus, browsing the markets at Covent Garden, viewing the Americanized Leicester Square and accidentally wandering into a gentleman's area in Soho (whoops!)
We finally settled on a little Turkish restaurant that sat about 12 people, Opuz Kitchen, for kebabs and beer. At about 9:30pm we stumbled home, chatted with our fellow Elon roomies and wandered back out to Robert Browning's pub in our neighborhood (Little Venice) for a final pint courtesy of Sam Smith's brewery.
Back in the U.S. W has now decided that I can swear at home, but only in an English accent. It just sounds cuter and more sophisticated.
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