Fodor's Expert Review Horse Guards Parade

Once the tiltyard for jousting tournaments, Horse Guards Parade is best known for the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony, in which the King takes the salute on his official birthday, on a Saturday in June. (Though it's called a birthday, it's actually just a ceremonial event—his real birthday is November 14.) It's a must-see if you're around, with marching bands and throngs of onlookers. Throughout the rest of the year, the changing of two mounted sentries, known as the King's Life Guard, at the Whitehall facade of Horse Guards provides what may be London's most popular photo opportunity. The ceremony takes place daily from April to July, and on alternate days from August to March (usually odd-numbered days, but check the monthly schedule at  www.householddivision.org.uk/changing-the-guard-calendar). It starts at 10:30 am at St. James's Palace, where the guard begins its march to Buckingham Palace, and the new guards take up their posts in a ceremony at 11. (It's sometimes canceled in bad weather.)

At 4 pm daily is the dismounting ceremony, aka the 4 O'Clock Parade, during which sentries are posted and horses are returned to their stables. It began in 1894, when Queen Victoria discovered the guards on duty drinking and gambling. As a punishment she decreed that the regiment should be inspected every day at 4 pm for the next 100 years—by the time 1994 swung around, they decided to continue the tradition indefinitely.