Buckingham Palace is still the official residence of Britain's monarchy, as it has been since Queen Victoria's designation in 1837. Much of the Buckingham Palace was constructed as early as 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham House (as it was then known) was purchased in 1762 by George III, who used it as a private residence. Over the following 75 years the house was expanded to form three wings around a central courtyard. When Queen Victoria discovered Buckingham Palace lacked several 'necessary' rooms - such as a formal ballroom, a nursery, visitor's bedrooms and others - major additions were undertaken, including adding an entire wing to form a quadrangle. Buckingham Palace is the home of the Changing Guard Ceremony in London. The Changing of the Guard has been a tradition for hundreds of years whereby the Household Regiment, the Queen’s Guards at Buckingham Palace, change shift in a fascinating show of pomp and circumstance.

In the afternoon, we'll visit one of London's well-known universities to learn about UK student life, majors, degrees and academic searches. For our students, it will be questions and answers based on an interactive visit.

Today we will take you on a 100 year journey of mail delivery. Journey back in time through the original tunnels and station platforms of London's 100-year-old postal railway. We will travel to the 100-year-old Mail Rail Post office railway engineering repository and enter the original tunnel with a miniature train. An award winning audio-visual gallery will provide you with a stage experience back in time to the vibrant heyday of the railway in the 1930’s. In the interactive gallery the museum's fun-filled displays will take you even closer to the action of sorting mails out in a travelling Post Office. Bottom line, motorbikes, mailboxes, machinery - and stamps which we still rely on. The Postal Museum collections reveal the colourful history of communication through the post and everything related to postal service comes alive here in this museum. Follow us.

Today we will take you to the commercial heart of the city, the entry point and the old port of London. The Museum of London Docklands is a museum on the Isle of Dogs in east London that tells the history of London's greatest asset River Thames and the development of Docklands. This is a very interesting story of a gentrification process of the very important trade area of London. We will explore Canary Wharf and hear how the neglected West India Docks were transformed into a thriving multimillion pound business hub. Our exploration will start right at the Museum’s 1802 warehouse building that was built by the brick builders of Docklands. We will learn about the fascinating history of London’s docks, their recent regeneration, and the development of Crossrail, London’s newest railway, on a walk around the areas surrounding East London’s famous and fancy Canary Wharf. See how tall ships left their spaces to the tall buildings because 200 years before Docklands was the busiest port in the world. This place was the trade centre of a huge Empire. Imagine that 60000 ships unload 80 million tonnes of cargo every year here in this place. Can you imagine what kind of wealth was provided through this trade? Literally, Docks were totally filled with exotic goods and products from the colonies across the British Empire. The world’s first industrialized area apparently was Docklands. It was the hub of an incredible empire of trade. The facilities which were laid out in Elizabethan times simply couldn’t cope with the forests of mass. Therefore, London’s merchants had no choice. They decided to build new docking facilities. In the next hundred years, nine new giant docks were built over an eight-mile stretch of land. You can imagine how phenomenal expansion it was. The solution was so clever. Vast areas behind the river were excavated to create giant mooring bays for the ships. The physical manpower and hard labour required for this project as we are talking about 20 million bricks just for the walls and docks, another 20 million bricks for the warehouses to build this massive industrial area of the world’s capital. This massive project immediately created perfect opportunities for work. Therefore, thousands of people poured into the Docklands to work in cargo handling, as well as in factories that grew alongside the docks. The docks served very well for 170 years. But in the 1960s their time had passed as modern techniques of container shipping meant the docks became redundant. What had taken a hundred years to build was sadly dismantled in just a decade and a half. But the Docklands were to live again. In the 1980s a massive redevelopment designed for both homes and businesses brought new life to London's historical East End. It's now one of the most modern high-tech areas of the city and this is exactly where we take you today. Join us!

Welcome to the heart and soul of the fashion industry in the city. Carnaby Street is a pedestrian shopping street in Soho City and its colourful history stemmed from when the street was built in 1682, taking its name from Karnaby House to the first men's boutique, being the epicentre of the Swinging 60s, home to the punks of the 80s and up to today. It is an iconic London area. Between Oxford and Regent Streets, fashion and lifestyle retailers are just located here, including a large quantity of independent fashion shops. In the heart of London's shopping scene, Carnaby Street brings you over 100 foreign and British fashion brands, independent boutiques, one off concepts, trendy beauty emporiums, grooming salons and custom jewellery specialists together. From brand-new flagships and UK firsts to presenting one-off and unique designers, Carnaby's 14 streets are lined up with women's wear, men's clothing, cosmetics and accessories like no other. Not just for shopping of course, more than 60 independent restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs selling cheap à la carte and late-night drinks, even yummy breakfasts bedazzle the tourists and Londoners alike. Now it’s your turn to explore this lovely district with us.

Now that you know the history of Docklands, it's time to pass beneath the River Thames. Greenwich Tunnel is one of the marvels of the late Victorian period in England. The project began in June 1899 and the tunnel opened on August 4, 1902. The tunnel actually replaced an expensive and often unreliable ferry service enabling staff living south of the Thames to access their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards in or around Isle of Dogs. It’s the only pedestrian tunnel beneath the River Thames that allows walkers and cyclists. The tunnel was restored after destruction during World War II. The entrance shafts at both ends are under glazed domes. Built-in 1904, lifts were upgraded in 1992 and again in 2012, and helical staircases allow pedestrians to enter this sloping, tiled tunnel. This cast-iron tunnel is 1,215 feet (370.2 m) wide, 50 feet (15.2 m) deep and about 9 feet (2.74 m) in diameter. The cast-iron rings are coated with some 200,000 white glazed tiles. Bombs weakened the northern end during World War II, and repairs required thick steel and concrete inner lining that significantly reduces diameter for a short span. The North Tower has 87 steps, the South Tower has 100 steps. Greenwich Foot Tunnel is actually one of the best examples to understand London’s subway system because cast iron tunnelling is the main principle of building the tunnels in the late Victorian eras.

Today is the last day in London unless you continue our program. Well, all good things must come to an end. We provide your transfer service back to the airport with a private vehicle. This is the end of our service and we hope to see you in our various programs here in London.