Today we will head to the red bus and see Big Ben, Tower of London, London Bridge, London Eye and Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately we can’t go inside Buckingham because the Queen doesn’t open it until end of August through September, but she is opening this year at the end of July so we just miss out L.
Well we decided to get a taxi from the hotel to the train station today it cost only a pound and half more than the bus and much more comfortable.
(Oh by the way as I am writing this we are flying over the French Alps. I have never seen mountains that high before there is snow on the tops and we are literally flying just over the tops of them and my ears keep on popping. We have to keep gaining altitude to go over them. Totally Amazing!)
Back to London. We walked to Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard, but as they were getting started we saw black smoke in the distance and all these police on horses came out and evacuated 1000s of us out of the Palace grounds because there had been a car explosion (they are very fearful of terrorist attack).
After being very disappointed in not being able to see a very famous English past time we headed back to the Big Bus Co. Tour bus and found that we had wait a while because the buses could not pass past the Palace. We were told to move on down to the next bus stop and get on there. We got on the bus finally after about an hour of waiting and headed through the city to Piccadilly Circus and Mayfair. The Ritz is quite impressive and all of the pubs look so pretty. Did you know that there are baskets of flowers hanging up all over the city? They have so much green in this city it is so pretty.
The London Eye was the next attraction for us to see so we popped off the bus at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. We spent about 10 minutes taking photographs of Big Ben for either side. It is very large and ornate. We walked over Westminster Bridge to Southbank and lined up for the London Eye, amazingly it only took about 30 mins to board onto the pod after having our bags checked and our bodies patted down. Also when everyone gets off the pods security personnel get on there with mirrors and check for bombs. We hopped on our moving pod and climbed very slowly over the city, you can see London Bridge (which is nothing special) and Big Ben, House of Parliament, the Gherkin and the top of Buckingham Palace. For me I really couldn’t wait to get off the London Eye it took way too long and I did not see anything that was not better on the ground.
We headed back to the bus stop and hopped on to find somewhere for lunch (2pm) We got off at Covent Garden and found a lovely pub called the Wellington Pub we went to check out the prices first and found that it was around 10p for all meals so we decided seeings as we ate MacDonalds the day before we would splurge on a pub meal. We had fish and chips and angus burgers and we treated the boys with coke. After our meals 39 p we headed back up the street to the bus again.
On the bus we went through many streets and lanes , heard stories about fires and when the city had to be rebuilt and saw some very narrow lanes with footpaths down the middle that covered up the old sewers.
We then went on to St Pauls Cathedral by this time is was raining and we had to use the plastic ponchos for the open top bus. At St Pauls we found that it closed before 4pm so we were unable to do another of the great English past times and climb the dome.
We decided to treat the boys to some lollies from the Sweet Shoppe and hopped back on the bus to go and see Tower Bridge (the one that has the towers and opens) this is NOT London Bridge like Fergie says in her song. It did open and let a boat through as we waited to cross over , this was quite a sight.Well we decided to get a taxi from the hotel to the train station today it cost only a pound and half more than the bus and much more comfortable.
(Oh by the way as I am writing this we are flying over the French Alps. I have never seen mountains that high before there is snow on the tops and we are literally flying just over the tops of them and my ears keep on popping. We have to keep gaining altitude to go over them. Totally Amazing!)
Back to London. We walked to Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard, but as they were getting started we saw black smoke in the distance and all these police on horses came out and evacuated 1000s of us out of the Palace grounds because there had been a car explosion (they are very fearful of terrorist attack).
After being very disappointed in not being able to see a very famous English past time we headed back to the Big Bus Co. Tour bus and found that we had wait a while because the buses could not pass past the Palace. We were told to move on down to the next bus stop and get on there. We got on the bus finally after about an hour of waiting and headed through the city to Piccadilly Circus and Mayfair. The Ritz is quite impressive and all of the pubs look so pretty. Did you know that there are baskets of flowers hanging up all over the city? They have so much green in this city it is so pretty.
The London Eye was the next attraction for us to see so we popped off the bus at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. We spent about 10 minutes taking photographs of Big Ben for either side. It is very large and ornate. We walked over Westminster Bridge to Southbank and lined up for the London Eye, amazingly it only took about 30 mins to board onto the pod after having our bags checked and our bodies patted down. Also when everyone gets off the pods security personnel get on there with mirrors and check for bombs. We hopped on our moving pod and climbed very slowly over the city, you can see London Bridge (which is nothing special) and Big Ben, House of Parliament, the Gherkin and the top of Buckingham Palace. For me I really couldn’t wait to get off the London Eye it took way too long and I did not see anything that was not better on the ground.
We headed back to the bus stop and hopped on to find somewhere for lunch (2pm) We got off at Covent Garden and found a lovely pub called the Wellington Pub we went to check out the prices first and found that it was around 10p for all meals so we decided seeings as we ate MacDonalds the day before we would splurge on a pub meal. We had fish and chips and angus burgers and we treated the boys with coke. After our meals 39 p we headed back up the street to the bus again.
On the bus we went through many streets and lanes , heard stories about fires and when the city had to be rebuilt and saw some very narrow lanes with footpaths down the middle that covered up the old sewers.
We then went on to St Pauls Cathedral by this time is was raining and we had to use the plastic ponchos for the open top bus. At St Pauls we found that it closed before 4pm so we were unable to do another of the great English past times and climb the dome.
After seeing a lot in one day we stayed on the bus until it stopped in front of the train station and we headed back to Copthorne Effingham J Gatwick Hotel.
View photo's here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5896548&id=533252243
1 comment:
WOW what a busy day you guys had! I never knew that I had issues with heights until I went on the London eye. I freaked out a little and went and sat down on the seat in the centre, I did stand up and take a photo when we were right at the top.
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