Europe trip: London (Day 2)

Day 2:
We started the day with a tube ride to South Kensington, where we got on a hop on hop off tour bus. While looking for the bus stop, we found a farmer's market and tried the best blue cheese I can remember eating - but we didn't buy it because we were just starting the day and thought refrigeration might be important. Pierce also had a burger (which was kind of a funny second breakfast), and then we found the bus.


We rode around maybe half of its first route, and hopped off the bus at St. Paul's Cathedral. I had wanted to visit it in the evening, because they have music at 5pm, but since we were passing by we went to visit.


It's huge and gorgeous.


When we went in, it was perfect because there was music! They were having a service (unfortunately I think it was a military funeral) with this HUGE organ, singing, and then at the end there was a brass band! It was awesome. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside.


Next we climbed the dome. It's 365' high, and 528 steps. We went up and up and up and up, and that was to the first level.




Then we went up a couple hundred more steps, which was interesting because they have obviously expanded the dome - we were climbing inside the current dome but there was another dome inside it. Anyway the view from the top was amazing!














Then we went back inside and sat down for their service. It was interesting. I was hoping for more music, but this was a spoken service. It was dramatic, and in this absolutely gorgeous building with gilded ceilings, and the priest wore very dramatic robes. But I just kept looking around at all the glitter and wealth and thinking about Jesus, teaching humble people by the side of the lake. It seems a little incongruous. But I did enjoy it, especially sitting down. There were also crypts in the basement, which we enjoyed, and I broke the rules and took this picture of Lord Nelson's crypt because of one of my favorite lines ever:


"terminated in the moment of victory by a glorious death". I need to find some reasons to use this.


And as long as I was breaking the rules to take pictures of the monument, I went ahead and took a picture of the ceiling too.


(And, can I add, the Chinese tourists were taking pictures all over the place all the time, so mine was hardly the only illicit picture taken.)


From the top of the dome we'd seen an interesting looking bridge, so we went off on foot through these very very charming streets.




We loved this living wall. There were a few of these, another one in Paris.






Looking back at St. Paul's from the bridge.


Crossing the Thames.




Right across the bridge was Shakespeare's Globe Theater. We got tickets for a tour and before it started we watched a sword demonstration, then got to hold the swords.








The theater is new, but constructed according to the original plans (I think it's at least pretty close). The original location was farther away from the river, but they couldn't build there because there was another historic building built at that exact spot after Shakespeare's time. It was interesting to see. We weren't allowed to take pictures because the actors were rehearsing. (I got in trouble for taking this one, but as you can see I'm not violating copyright because their faces aren't even visible.)


Then back to walking. We wove around the busy streets, finding the Borough Market, which was super super cool. We bought some food and kept walking because we really wanted to see the Tower Bridge. Finally we found it!




The view from the bridge. We didn't go up in the high bridge - Pierce wasn't so inclined and all of us had some pretty sore feet by this time.






On the other side of the bridge is the Tower of London, which is a GREAT national park, but it was going to close soon so we put it off until the next day.


At this point we split up, and Matt and the girls went off to see the Bodies of London exhibit, and Pierce and I went to see the Churchill War room museum. We all enjoyed our choices. The War Room is a museum put in the bunkers where Churchill lived and worked during the war - it was very well done. (But I don't think we were supposed to take pictures, or anyway I didn't take any.)


Pierce and I had a plan to go look for show tickets in Leicester Square, but we got distracted by St. James's Park on the way, and decided to stick around and see the park instead.


It was so beautiful! A huge park - you would never know that the busy London streets were just half a block away.


While walking by the lake, we saw a sign that has my other favorite line from the trip. It explained that this lake houses pelicans gifted from Russia, and how the "diplomatic exchange of pelicans" began.








Walking, walking, walking. It's a beautiful park!




At the end of it is Buckingham Palace. We went to see whatever we could see (which was just the front gates).






The gates are very gilded.


Lots of people, but we didn't see the queen. There are tours of Buckingham Palace, but only in the summer months when the queen is not in residence. So we just hung about outside the gates, like everyone else.






We sat down by the fountain to look for a restaurant, and found another great fish & chips dinner that we all took the tube and met at.




Zoe really wanted to see the Eye at night, so we went back over to see that. There was also a street performer magician guy (lots of talk, not too much magic) and the Eye was very pretty. Night came late so we had to wait past 9:30 to see the lights.




Our subway line passed the stop for the Tardis, so we hopped out at Earl's Court and took a couple of pictures in front of the Tardis (unfortunately it was locked, so we couldn't tell if it was bigger on the inside). We collapsed into bed when we finally got back to Acton Towne.


Mattie's fitbit logged 18,171 steps. It felt like more.

Europe trip: London (Day 1)

It was the trip of a lifetime! Three weeks in England and France. It was the longest trip we've ever taken, and the first time we were actually okay with going home. (Then, it took so long to get home!) It was exhausting and absolutely incredible. I want to put the pictures together in one place so we can enjoy them and I can remember what happened later on.

Day 1:
We arrived in London at Heathrow at 7:00am, our third flight. We all slept at least a little on the long flight and got out of the plane excited and ready to go! Our phones slowly turned on and we found that the data worked (sort of - verrrrry slllllooooowwwwwlllllyyyy). We waited in a long customs line. And then we were out! We found the underground and bought our Oystercards and got on the metro. The stop for our hotel was Acton Towne, where we walked a kilometer through the city to our hotel, dragging our bags behind us. (We never used the straps I'd painstakingly sewed to the duffel bags - oh well. The bags were really just too heavy.) The hotel let us drop our bags off, so we freshened up a bit and went right back down the road to the metro. We next rode to the Westminster stop and emerged right in front of Big Ben! (Only it doesn't look like Big Ben right now - it's covered with scaffolding, which will show in later pictures.) We went out on a bridge over the Thames to get our bearings.







The first thing Zoe wanted to do was the Eye, but then again she kind of wanted to do it at night, but then again... and Pierce was sure he didn't want to do it at all. I bought London Explorer passes for all of us, so starting that morning we had 7 activities of our choice to choose from, including the Eye. It took awhile (and a phone call!) to get it activated, so we kept walking for the time being.

Across the river from the Eye is an Egyptian obelisk. This huge Sphinx is there too - it's not ancient, it's from a more recent period, but still cool. There are two and they were installed "improperly" - looking at the obelisk instead of facing away so they could guard it. One other cool thing is that you can see shrapnel damage on the side of the pedestal from a WWI bomb.

The obelisk, which they call Cleopatra's Needle, was gifted to the UK in 1819 after Lord Nelson won the Battle of the Nile. It was originally erected in about 1450BC and has various inscriptions on it, very cool. There is a matching one in NYC in Central Park evidently but I don't remember seeing it. (More about Lord Nelson to come!)

Our internet service worked in Europe... but it was super slow, especially at first. While I was waiting to download our Explorer passes, we walked up to Trafalgar Square and went in the National Gallery. One neat thing about England is that their national galleries and many museums are free. This one had some gorgeous art! We skipped around and saw a few amazing things (some of us were more enthusiastic than others).

For whatever reason I didn't take a picture of the huge Nelson's Column - I was more interested in these winged bull statues, a recreation of a statue destroyed by Isis in Iraq. More lamassus later!



This is inside the National Gallery. My photography was really hit and miss. The ceilings and floors were amazing!








That's Mattie with the (temporarily) red hair, so you can see the scale.



Pierce was starving (and doesn't like art galleries) so we eventually left the gallery and found a fish & chips pub near the square. There are phone booths like this all over the city - we only saw one person actually using one, and many more tourists posing in front of them like we did! It's like London doesn't know about cell phones...



Trafalgar Square. I guess I took a picture of just the pedestal of the column. But it's quite tall and imposing, and the fountain is beautiful.

Then it was finally time to walk back to the Eye (I was able to use Wifi in the museum) and take a ride! It's tall but it's a really slow ride, 30 minutes to go all the way around, so Pierce decided he could go after all. It wasn't scary though, and he even looked out (just not down).

Going up!










This is what the pods look like. Ours was a lot more crowded than the one before us! But still fun.

This picture is cool because you can see Parliament (the huge gothic complex) and Big Ben, which was all covered with scaffolding - we couldn't at first even believe that it was Big Ben. Not so picturesque.


To the right of Big Ben is Westminster Abby, which we never visited (to my regret). We did drive by a few times in a bus.




I think this is the very top of the ride. It's 443' high. (More on elevation later!)

After the Eye, we went in Dungeons of London, which was kind of a museum/show where we walked through various terrible dungeons and dangerous times, with some fun acting. Matt kept getting picked to get "tortured" or sit in the executioner's chair, etc. It was fun - after we were done we were pretty exhausted so we went back to Acton Towne and had grocery store dinner and went to bed.

Mattie's fitbit logged 24,842 steps.