A good trip to London with an awful ending…

The Flight Over

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went on a semi-short trip to London.  Flew out Thursday, flew back Tuesday.  We had a pretty nice trip until the ending (which I'll get to that story tomorrow). We flew from New Orleans to Miami then to London.

 

 

Above: I got to test out my new Think Tank Streetwalker Pro Hard Drive bag.  Worked out perfectly.

 

 

Day 1

Our flight got in Friday morning. We bought Oyster Cards so we could use the London Underground and get to our hotel by Victoria Station. Once we got off at Victoria Station and started walking to our hotel we realized how busy London is. We felt very overwhelmed lugging our suitcases through the dense London sidewalk and then trying to figure out which way to go to our hotel.

 

 

But we did finally find our hotel, check in, and then we got to relax for a bit.  After traveling for 24 hours with minimal sleep in a tiny airplane seat, it takes alot out of you.

 

Above: View of Victoria Station from our hotel room.

 

Above: I was very happy to see in our hotel they had 110v outlets also, so I didn't have to use my bulky power convertor

 

Once we relaxed and got freshen up we were off to rome the streets.  We walked to Buckingham Palace, through Green Park, then went and had a late lunch at a little English pub on the corner (had fish and chips). AND THEY HAD WIFI!! Anybody that has a iPhone, Android phone, or any smartphone doesn't realize how lost you are without the use of Google Maps, or Yelp, or Facebook, etc…  It's nice to have Yelp to look up nearby restaurants, or Facebook to share a picture you just took, or Google Maps to figure out where the hell you're at.

 

Above: Buckingham Palace

 

That night we headed over to the London Eye area where we also saw Big Ben and the House of Parliament across the Thames River.  The London Eye was pretty neat.  At night they light it up with this blue, purplish glow.

 

Above: Big Ben

 

Above: House of Parliament

 

Above: London Eye

 

Day 2

The next day we had breakfast at this little cafe place called Le Pain Quotiden which was delicious. It was kind of like a mix between La Madeline and Panera Bread.  After breakfast we took the Tube over to St Paul's Cathedral, which has the most beautiful interior behind St Peter's.  It stinks that we couldn't take pictures inside; I would loved to have shared some of the magnificent architectural details inside.

 

Above: St Paul's Cathedrel

 

After our visit to St Paul's we headed back over to the London Eye for Thames River Cruise and the ride on the London Eye.  Both were awesome! On the river cruise we went all the way down the river to the Tower of London.  We really got to see everything along the river from a different perspective. And the ride on the London Eye was just as great. The views we got from up high were incredible. We got to see the entire city.

 

Above (top right): That's the Wobbly Millennium Bridge – Seen in sixth Harry Potter Movie

 

Above: View from the London Eye

 

After our ride we took the "scenic route" back and stopped by Westminster Abbey (which was closed), and passed through all sorts of small side streets, and somehow finally managed to find our way back to the hotel.

 

.Above (left middle): Westminster Abbey

 

That night we found an Italian restaurant on Yelp right by our hotel. It was a chain but it had awesome reviews and we really wanted some good pizza. So we get bundled up (its was in the 40s every night) and walked to where we think it is only to find out it's closed for renovation.  Now we are stuck (no WiFi again), starving, not sure what places are good, or how fancy they are, or how expensive they are.  We finally settle for some fancy grill place; food was ok and we go back to hotel. We are exhausted and jetlagged as hell so we stay in the rest of the night.

 

 

Day 3

We had purchased tickets for an all-day bus tour that went to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bathe.  So we wake up really early, eat breakfast at the McDonalds in Victoria Station (yea, pretty lame), then rush over to Victoria Coach Station and wait outside. And wait, and wait, and wait. Forty-five minutes after the bus was suppose to leave we finally head back to our hotel to talk to the concierge.  He explains that all tours go out of gate 6 inside the coach station. And both my wife and I are thinking, "Wait there are gates?!"  Nothing in our email confirmation nor on the tour guides website mentioned anything about gate numbers.  All it said was pick up from Victoria Coach Station.  So we have the concierge call the tour company and thankfully they let us reschedule for the next day (our last day).

 

Above: After we missed our tour bus to Bathe.

 

So we have to shuffle a few things around.  Luckily our tickets for Tower of London could be used any day, so instead of going on Monday, we flip everything around.  So after our disappointing start we rest for alittle bit then head off to Tower of London.  It was awesome!!  Up until that point St Paul's Cathedral was the best part of our trip.  There was so much to see; so much history to see.  There were walls surrounding the entire area, including one side on the Thames River and a small tower / small castle in the middle.

 

Above: Taken on our walk to Tower of London – Got kind of lost again – I'm spoiled by Google Maps

 

Above: They had these figurines all over the place – they were pretty neat.

 

We got to see some of the Crown Jewels which at first I said, "I don't care about jewelry".  They were AWESOME! There were crowns from kings and queens and princes and princess from the last millenia. They had huge diamonds and jewels in the glistening crowns, and they were lit PERFECTLY; but of course, they don't allow pictures.  It was painful to walk through and not get a picture of them. The last place we went to was the tower in the iddle which is the oldest part of the complex.  There were exhibits after exhibits after exhibits. Again it was pretty incredible seeing all the historic armors and swords, and horses and just being surrounded by history.

 

 

We left out of the side onto the Thames river where we got a perfect view of Tower Bridge.

 

 

 

The Food

After we left the Tower of London area we were hungry so we searched the area and happened to find another location of the restaurant we were looking for the night before.  So of course, we had to eat here. The food was yummy yummy, especially the pizza (Zizzi). Even though it is a chain, I would highly recommend this place to anyone who wants some great Italian.

 

 

Once we finished eating we wanted to see Regent's Park and above the park is Abbey Road Crossing. So we looked at our Tube Map and found the "best" way to get there. Note: a large portion of the lines were closed on both Day 2 and 3 due to renovation for the upcoming Olympics in London. So we choose the route that we thought was the best alternative. Well of course the Tube line we chose must have been one of the oldest lines because it was frustratingly slow and it stopped for 2 to 3 minutes at every station (we had to go at least ten stations to get to Regent's Park).

 

Above: Slowest subway ever…

 

We did finally make it to Regent's Park with maybe about thirty minutes of light left.  We were using a tiny map to "navigate" where Abbey Road is, and we started to up the side of the park.  Apparently, Regent's Park is HUGE!  After speed-walking for at least twenty-five minutes we realize we weren't even half way around Regent's Park and by this point dusk has already fallen and it's rapidly getting very dark, so we decide it's a good idea to head back to the Underground. We never got to see Abbey Road.

 

 

Day 4

We didn't miss our bus this time.  We made sure we were plenty early to gate 6.

 

Above: Waiting for our tour bus at gate 6.

 

Our tour guide was a British school teacher who was a tour guide on the side.  He was awesome; one of the best tour guides I've ever had.  It really made for a great trip to see all of the different locations in our one day trip.  We first stopped at Windsor Castle where the Queen of England was in residence.  It was spectacular; I still can't decide which was better Windsor Castle or Tower of London.  They both had so much history in every portion of them.  We toured the ins and outs of the entire compound and saw the Queen Mary's Dolls' House. It is this doll house 1:12 in scale where everything in it works; toilets, sinks, plumbing, etc… It was pretty ridiculous.  We couldn't take pictures again nor could we take pictures of the other incredible treasures we saw in the Queen's collections.

 

Above: When the Queen's standard (flag) is flying here it means she is in residence.

 

 

There was security everywhere, but the Queens Guards were definitely the most interesting.  We got to see the changing of the guards, which is where a band leads in the new guards to replace the on duty guards (they are on duty for a 24 hour shift).  It's all a bit grand for a new shift to take over, but it was pretty neat to see. Viewers got the impression that they were stepping back in time by seeing such a tradition-rich event.  After taking in the changing of the guard, we quickly surveyed Windsor Chapel before hurrying out before the new guard takes over and closes the gate for half an hour.

 

Above: Changing of the Guard

 

The next stop was Stonehenge; which features stones over 5500 year old. Frankly, I didn't expect to be that impressed, I thought, "They're just stones, right?"  Little did I realize how old they are and how amazing the story of how it was constructed and with minimal resources. In this case, I'll let the pictures speak about the site's enigmatic and mysterious nature.

 

Above: 5500 year old Stonehenge

 

 

After our short tour of Stonehenge we headed over to Bathe, where we got to see Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  This beautiful church supposedly boasts the best acoustics in England only behind Cambridge University.  Many famous classical pieces are recorded here.  After touring the Abbey, we visited the Roman Baths, which sit on top of a hot spring which has been providing baths since the Romans were here, over 2000 year ago.

 

Above (top left): We weren't suppose to touch the water; but we did.

 

Above: Roman Bath

After we left the Roman Baths we had about thirty-five minutes until our bus left for the two hour drive back to London.  We wanted to see one last thing: The Royal Crescent.  My wife has read every Jane Austin novel and seen just about every movie based off her books.  So the Royal Crescent was a must.  But the problem was that it wasn't very close and again without handy Google to help us out we gamble and try to find the place.  We ended up getting partial lost in some parking lot then finally came out of the other side to see this:

 

Above: The Royal Crescent – yes, it was worth the 20 minute hike.

 

We took pictures of each other, a few HDRs, and a pano (in about 4 minutes) and then power walked back to our bus with just enough time to buy some ice cream and board the bus.

 

 

You can view all the individual pictures, plus others that aren't included in this post on my Google+ Page

 

 

Next Morning

Everything for our trip went fairly well with only a few hiccups here and there until… The flight experience from hell.  I will have the story about our flight back in my next post including the "letter" that was sent to American Airlines.

Hope you enjoy.

 

 

---