London

We are in London!  Spent a week and actually stayed out by the airport. Used an Oyster card for transportation which is a prepaid credit card type arrangement.  The buses don't take money so everyone preloads a card and you get one warning ride if it is empty but you must reload money on the card before it can be used again. We spent ~45 minutes riding from the hotel corner on a double-decker bus to the Hounslow bus station where we went into the metro.  Then we got on the Picadilly line into central London where we transferred to the Central, District, or Jubilee line (sounds so British), depending on where we were going.  Usually took another hour to get to our destination.  Then we did the same for our return each night. It sounds like a lot of time spent on metros and buses but it wasn't bad.  It gave us a picture of local London life.  It was interesting to observe the people.  And they really do fill those cars to capacity, sardine-can tight.  Sometimes I had to push Doug in so I could get in behind him or be left behind, and we sometimes had to push our way off.  The trains come very often, though, so it really is a great transportation system and well used by Londoners.

Tower of London

We did so many things in London, a lot of the typical tourist spots, so I will just describe the ones that particularly stood out for me.  Our first venture was to the Tower of London.  They have an exhibition there from August until 11/11 this year to commemorate the soldiers lost in WWI, this being the 100th anniversary.  We saw several special exhibits to commemorate the war.  This one was a flood of ceramic red poppies spilling into the moat.  It was very powerful and beautiful.  There will be one poppy for each lost soldier from the UK, over 888,246 of them.

Tower of London

The Tower of London was very interesting in and of itself.  It is a compound and has many old towers, dating back over a thousand years.  It is where Anne Boleyn was beheaded.  You could see the Tower Bridge from there and it opened for boats twice while we toured the Tower.





Tower of London




Tower of London

We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  Found out that the royal properties are only open for tours 6 weeks in the summer while the Queen vacations in Scotland.  We hit Buckingham Palace and Windsor Palace on the last three days they did tours.  We had many such lucky breaks including the weather that held out for us.  We hit clouds and short rain spurts but no real rainy days.  After our tour of Buckingham, we had lunch on the back veranda. (ta-de-da).

back of Buckingham Palace

St. George's Chapel

We toured Windsor Castle on Sunday, the last day of tours.  St. George's Chapel was closed for the day for tours but held 4 Sunday services.  Evensong was scheduled for 5:15 PM.  They sent all the tourists out by 5:00, did a security sweep, then let you back in for the service.  We sat in the quire, which is where the choir normally sits.  They had a 12-man and 6-boy choir that sang almost the whole service.  It was wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!

We rode the Eye, toured Westminster Abbey, toured the Parliament, toured Kensington Palace which was Queen Victoria's home and where Prince William's family lives, toured St. Paul's Cathedral, passed the Globe Theater (Shakespeare's theater), walked the streets of London, and walked the entire length of Hyde Park.  Most London places (and some other churches) wouldn't allow pictures so we brought home about 10-15 lbs of paper in pamphlets and books (from all over Europe).

Westminster Abbey

the Eye

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Kensington Palace

St. Paul's Cathedral

Hyde Park

Hyde Park