We stayed at The Grosvenor hotel, right in the middle of downtown. The room was small, but it's London...kind of what they're known for. We were greeted with a bouquet of snacks and a wonderful postcard.
One of my favorite things to do it just wander around, walking the streets and taking in the sites. Our first day in London, that's just what we did. Not to mention we were a little jet-lagged from the 9 hour flight we endured earlier in the day, so we didn't feel like jumping in and running through the city trying to find what we wanted to do. We just walked around leisurely until time for our hotel room to be ready for us. We landed around 8am local time, having been up all night. We dropped our bags off at the Grosvenor and realized...we were starving! Our flight had left from the States later the evening before, and we had flown through the night. London was a +6 hour time difference for us, so the 8am felt like 2am to us. We ate at a delightful little English cafe and had a delicious breakfast.
I love that the crosswalks tell you which way to look for oncoming traffic.
My husband was rather excited to see a gold Ferrari parked on the street :)
I would have loved to go into Harrod's, however they were closing in 10 minutes, so I didn't want to be rude and walk in to check out the 4 floors of department store
I highly recommend the Borough market. It takes place every Saturday morning and you can get some of the freshest, most delicious food. Everything from cheeses, breads and other baked goods, to smoothies and BBQ, and cuisine from several different countries.
Our first stop on our "tourist day" was a visit to Windsor castle. There were surprisingly not that many people there. But then again, the flag was up, so the Queen was there! This also explained the armed guards.. Still, a very cool castle.
Our next stop on the tour took us to the roman baths, in...you guessed it! Bath, England. They were Ok. Neat to see, but I ended up walking down the street to a local shop and having a sandwich while waiting for the rest of our tour to be ready to go..
Now, what I had been waiting for..Stonehenge!! My husband was looking forward to this one the least. He said something like, "why do we need to waste a day going to see a pile of famous rocks?"
....joke is on him! Once we got there, he LOVED IT. The actual monument is back off the beaten path, and they take you there on these little tram-golfcart things. It is very quiet at the monument, and our bus was the only bus there so we were able to spread out and it was like we had the place to ourselves. You can walk a 360 around Stonehenge, however you are no longer allowed to get very close to the monument.
Most places inside the city we walked to. We did, however, buy a 24 hour bus pass and spent 2 and a half hours riding around the entire city on the double decker bus. It was quite chilly in the mornings, but in a country famous for being cold and rainy, we only had the cold. It only rained once, and it was the day we left.
I can't say enough--I love this city!
No trip to London is complete without a trip to the Tower of London. Her Majesty's crown jewels are housed here, but for me, personally, I had already seen them and my husband didn't care enough to stand in a 3 hour waiting line to get in to see them. Instead, we went to the four story weapons museum. We didn't do it this trip, but I would recommend the night tour of the Tower. Be prepared for lines though.
Included in our 24 hour bus pass was a river cruise. The pick-up and
drop off points are the the Tower's grounds and right in front of the
Parliament Building/Clock Tower (Big Ben). We got off the bus at the
Tower and decided to take the cruise before our ticket expired...we
thought the tour would take us down to Parliament and come back so we could do our Tower tour..turns out the cruise was only one-way. We got off the cruise ship at the other end of the city and realized we had 3 minutes left on our bus pass. We ran. The nearest bus pickup was a few blocks away and WE MADE IT! There was a bus waiting to leave the pick up point and we got on the bus with 1 minute left to spare. As long as we were on the bus before our pass became invalid, we could ride it as long as we liked. So, naturally, we rode the bus around the city again and when it stopped at the Tower of London again, we got off and ended up taking the Underground back to our hotel.
Of course you have to ride the London Eye. I absolutely recommend buying your ticket to the last ride of the evening. The views of London all lit up against the night sky are simply amazing. The photo is from my phone and simply doesn't do it justice. We took more pictures with our DSLR camera, but unfortunately I don't have those handy.
We also got to see a few scenes from the dress rehearsal of the play being performed at the Globe Theater. That was a bonus!
As a tennis player, I was looking forward to going to see Wimbledon, but we just simply ran out of time. We also didn't go to Buckingham Palace. Our hotel was seated at the back of the palace, so we walked past it several times during our week-long adventure, but we never really stopped at it.
We did stop at the Sherlock Holmes museum, it was surprisingly crowded, but it was cool to see some of the original Sherlock Holmes books and an original English home.
We tried to jam pack a lot into a week. I wish we could have stayed longer! I like London because:
1. The city is clean.
2. We wandered around after dark several nights and never once felt unsafe. In a city where there are people EVERYWHERE, this surprised me.
3. You will never run out of things to do. There is so much to see and do, I could live there for years and still not see everything
4. Stores aren't open all night. In fact, other than the pubs, most things close down by 8pm so that people can go home to their families. I like that. Plus, for people like us who like to just walk around in foreign cities, many of the "tourists" leave when the stores close, freeing up a lot of the streets.
I can't wait to go back!
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