London (Tower of London)

Back to share part 2 of our favorite day in London with you.

Our next stop on the hop on/hop off bus tour was the Tower of London.

We took a Yeoman Warder tour, lasting about 1 hour with an interesting history of the Tower over the years.  We stopped to visit the Crown Jewels. And, of course, checked out the gruesome room with the instruments of torture on display.  This is another place I would like to visit again one day.

Back on to the bus to try to make it to Buckingham Palace to take a few photos.  But alas, we never made it to our destination.  Just couldn't find it before the rain started and the sun went down.

A rainy view of the River Thames and Parliment. And a beautiful sunset after the rain cleared.

One last reminder to look right when crossing the street.

 Emma feeling like we finally mastered riding the Underground.

London (St. Paul's Cathedral)

Our last day in London...

Started with a hop on/hop off bus tour...

We almost skipped St. Paul's Cathedral, but at the last minute my heart insisted that I stop and I'm old enough and wise enough to know to listen when my heart whispers to me...

I LOVED the inside of the cathedral. We purchased the audio tour, but ended up turning it off and just wandered around, listening to the noises in the "working cathedral" and soaking up the history and the beauty.

The plaza outside was amazing too.  I really loved this area of London and hope to spend more time here on my next visit...

Then back on the bus to kick back and see some amazing views of the city...

One final view of St. Paul's...

And King's Cross St. Pancras Station, a major station for the Underground.  Such a beautiful space for public transportation!

Finally, a photo of how little all the cars were in Europe.  No SUV's anywhere...

London (London Eye)

Westminster Abbey

 

 

Heading to Paddington Station.

Where, after wandering for a long time, along the streets of London, past the Parliament building, past Trafalgar square, we made it to our destination.

Westminster Abbey. We went on the audio tour, and it was pretty amazing inside, but no photos were allowed.

Then we headed back to the Underground station to grab lunch at one of the numerous places we passed as we left the same station.  But first, I felt the need to take around 50 more photos of Big Ben.

One with the London Eye + One cheesy touristy one + One with Winston Churchill + One from the other side of the bridge.

Instead of finding food, we just kept wandering, and wandering and wandering.

And saw some cool buildings. But no sit down restaurants.  And my bad leg was killing me. And me good hip hurt from the fall out of the shower that morning. And my shoulder was hurting from the fall out of the shower that morning. And we were all very hungry. And frustrated. And tired. And lost. And then we looked up and saw Big Ben again. And I may have cried angry tears.

We had walked in a giant circle.  So I lost my mind, and said let's just go to that McDonald's by the Eye.  So we did. After refueling, we found our Underground station and went back to the hotel and called it a day, right after we hit up that Tesco for comfort snacking.

Cadbury egg pudding for me, odd tasting Kit Kats for Emma.

In summary, day 3 was a rough one for us.  Between the shower falling escapade, learning that following a map is much harder in a city that does not follow a grid system or always have obvious street signs, and seeing much less of the city than we hoped for, it was not a great day.

But we learned to ask questions when lost, eat when near food rather than when a perfect spot was found, grasp the concept that Underground stations were huge and harder to navigate than expected, and develop a healthy fear of odd European showers.  This trip was all about learning lessons!

Off to Europe

Day 1 was a travel day.

1 super shuttle + 4 hour wait at airport + 4 hour flight to Toronto + 1.5 hour layover + 7 hour flight to London + 1.5 hours wait to get through customs + 30 min van ride to hotel + 40 minute wait for early hotel check in = 4 very tired people.

Day 2 we arrived in London and went out exploring for a few hours. We all wanted to nap, but were told not to, just stay awake and follow the time in your new city.

We were about 25 min outside zone 1 of London, by train.  The heart of London is zone 1, then there are concentric circles going out from zone 1, with the numbers getting higher the further out.  We stayed in zone 5.  Zone 1 hotels were expensive and had tiny rooms, so I opted to be a little further out but had a 2 bedroom apartment with living room and full kitchen (picture showed a washer/dryer too, but travel is full of surprises).  The train line was across the street, so we had easy access to London.  We traveled into Paddington Station, then took the underground to the London Eye.

I didn't expect to be very impressed by The Eye, but I thought it was something the girls would like to do.  Turns out they weren't very impressed either.  We did get to see some good aerial city views, but we also saw lots of other tourists with selfie sticks talking to their cameras. The area around The Eye was crowded and way too touristy for me, complete with a McDonald's.  We did not see a lot of fast food chains in Europe, just in the tourist areas.

We got to see our first view of the Parliament building and Big Ben, across the river Thames, just as the sun was setting.

We hopped back on the Underground, got slightly lost, exited the train station, found a local pub to eat at, and learned not to order "flat water". In Europe, you either drink flat or bubbly water. But flat water comes in a very expensive glass bottle at restaurants and cost 4.50 pounds, or about 7 U.S. dollars per bottle.  We learned to order tap water after that.  And drinks were usually served without ice, and only sometimes available even if requested.  And Katie asked for a side of ranch for her fries, but our waiter had never heard of ranch. But our food was delicious.  Fish and chips, baked chicken, and a flaky pot pie filled with chorizo and chicken and sauce.

Once we were full, we were able to figure out the Underground situation and made our way back to Paddington Station,  then back to the apartment.  There was some confusion over what stop to get off the train, since we did not pay attention when we initially jumped on, but a kind stranger saw our confusion and helped us.  (Which is pretty much how we survived public transportation the entire trip...kind strangers!)

We ran to the Tesco next to the apartment (local grocery shop) and picked up breakfast foods for the next morning.

End of day 2.