Changing guards. Stocholm vs. London.

During my staying in Stockholm and London in 2014, I manged to see changing of the guards in front of both royal palaces.

Let us compare.

In Sweden, Royal Palace can be approached by anyone.

There are no fences, couple of guards and that is it.

In the UK, it is different.

No way you can come close like in Sweden.

And there is no way that in front of the Buckingham palace Del Boy could park his little truck, like in Sweden.

When the guards are changing:

In Sweden, just a few japanese tourists and random pass-by people.

In the UK - it is very crowded, and the police is securing the area.

Take a look.

Sweden.

Take a look into UK.

If you ask the police politely, they will escort you to a nice spot.

Here we go.

The orchestra.

British cavalry.

In Sweden, you can come really close to the guards.

And they have women as guards too.

In the UK, this guard changing thing is massive.

And the music they play in front of the palace !?!

Listen and take a look.

They even played The Beatles!

The Queen is so lucky...

I just LOVED it!

What's not to love?

Except that -if you all did not know - all the guards carry the real munition.

Riffles and guns.

No, thanks.

Big difference Sweden and UK, isn't it?

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When we were by the Buckingham Palace, we went to the Royal Mews.

It was nice, seeing royal horses, coaches, car.

 

Queen's toys.

The infamous golden coach.

People who serve the Queen live and work here.

We managed to get a really nice guide.

I was surprised to hear how strict the policy is for all the personnel.

They do not get to have much free time.

And the horses - training all day.

Turned out that pulling a coach is quite complicated since all these animals need to be in sync.

For example - if one of the horses by the golden coach would stop - the coach would fall apart.

That is the reason why these horses are very carefully selected, they train a lot and if they do not behave well - they send them to one of the villages all over England.

Looks like being a royal horse is a very challenging job?

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