London Recap!

Big Ben. It was rainy. ;)

I thought I would share a few photos and give you a recap of our trip! I know I've already talked to some of you about it, but I know others are still curious. I put up a bunch of photos on Facbook, so I'm not going to put up an excessive amount, but I couldn't resist putting some up. :)

So, we landed in London at 6:30ish AM. The first day or so we were so TIRED, but we still had so much fun. It is a very charming city, and I would like to go back to enjoy it more when I am not so exhausted. After getting through security and customs and all of that, we took the Heathrow Express (which, I like to call the Hogwarts Express. But not when I was in London, I promise) to Paddington Station. Our hotel was nearish to Paddington, but it was a good 15 or 20 minute hike and it was raining. Let's just say this was one of the few tense moments we had on our trip. ;)

Once we got our stuff dropped off, we were STARVING so we got some breakfast at a resturant on our way back to Paddington to go exploring. The food was so-so, but I did discover apparently it is a very British thing to have kidney beans on toast for breakfast. I did not try it. ;) Our next stop was the Tower of London.

There was so much History at the Tower of London. It was nuts! I don't have too many pictures of our visit there, simply because it was quite dark and all the cool places did not allow pictures. Let me just say the Crown Jewels are worth the price of admission... they were so beautiful! Some of those jewels were bigger than my head. That's only a slight exaggeration. Very very cool. It was also cool seeing Tower Bridge with the Olympic Rings on them. You'll probably see it multiple times over the next couple of weeks. ;)

London Eye

After the Tower of London, we just walked down the Thames for a long time. We saw a couple Bridges, shops, restaurants. We did lots of just walking while we were there. It's a great way to see the city! Then we went back to the hotel to grab a shower and get ready for dinner. After dinner we hit the London Eye.

Our next day in London we had breakfast and shared a table with a complete stranger. But I guess that's normal in Europe. It wasn't the only time this happened! We had a bike tour scheduled for our second day in London, but unfortunately we missed it due to a hiccup trying to find it in Waterloo station. So our plan B was to head up to the theatre to buy Phantom of the Opera tickets and do some more exploring of that area of London. Then we went ate lunch at a very yummy pub and hit Westminster Abbey.

Sausage and Mash. Doesn't get much more British than this.

Westminster

Westminster

 We couldn't take pictures in the Abbey, but it was beautiful. My favorite church we went to the whole trip. They stopped every hour on the hour to recite a prayer from the prayer book. During the prayer everyone had to stop and be silent. It was just neat because there was still reverence there, unlike a lot of other churches we went on this trip. After touring the Abbey we did some shopping on Oxford street, grabbed some Afternoon Tea. After a short break to get ready, we saw Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. It was AWESOME.

Our last day in London we were able to reschedule our bike tour. It was wonderful! I have so many great shots from the tour, so I hope you can go see all of them on Facebook, but here are some of my favorites:

The London Eye

Changing of the Guard

Buckingham Palace

St. Paul's Cathedral

The Millennium Bridge (with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background)

British Museum

 After our tour we ended our last day of London at the British Museum.

 

They had some of the Olympic Gold medals on display. So cool to see that part of Olympic history. 

Overall London was excellent. We had a ton of fun and look forward to going there again. It's hard to pick a favorite thing that we did but I think seeing Phantom was way up there for me. So was Westminster Abbey. Please ask questions if I didn't do a good job explaining or you're curious. I love talking about the trip.