"The English have really everything in common with America nowadays. Except, of course, the language" -Oscar Wilde
I must admit that when we set out for England I was least excited about London. After all, I figured Oscar Wilde was onto something. London, England is of course not the same as large American cities, like I thought it was. While yes, it is a bustling, lived in, real life city, London has so much history, life, vibrancy, art and culture to keep people coming back for a lifetime.
After our detour to visit Oxford we checked ourselves into jolly ol' London town. We arrived in the evening and the main attraction, for me at the time, was Buckingham Palace. So that is where we strolled to after dropping off our bags.
A perk of seeing Buckingham Palace at night? There are no crowds.
We had a very busy first full day of sightseeing when we got up the next morning. We started with a tour of the Tower of London, which was a highlight and a must see. We followed the Yeoman throughout the tower and its grounds. He explained the history of the tower in a way that held my attention the entire time, which is to say this tour would also be good for children. He told us about people who had been locked up in the tower, battles fought, monarchies challenged, and about the long standing belief that if the Ravens ever leave the tower the kingdom will fall. The grounds and the history are impressive in themselves and worth the almost half day visit. Then you get to the Crown Jewels. I like history but I also like shiny, sparkly things (like I said good for me, probably good for children). For reasons you can probably guess you are not allowed to take pictures inside the hall that holds the Crown Jewels. So you will have to take my word for it, they are worth it. You see up close and personal the crown and staff Queen Elizabeth held at her Coronation, jewels from famous images of Princess Dianna, all of them are stunning! You can see a portion of the collection, my favourite pieces, from the moving conveyer belt. The items are behind glass and you cannot touch them. But you can ride the conveyer belt as many times as you wish, I think we took at least 4 trips on it.
Just outside of the Tower of London you get a wonderful view of the Tower Bridge.
After leaving the Tower of London we wandered around the business district of the city. While doing this we stumbled upon some monuments for The Great Fire of London of 1666.
After lunch we headed to Piccadilly Circus and Harrods. This area felt a little bit like Times Square or other large city centers with shopping, billboards and hoards of people. Harrods is worth a visit for the upscale shopping. Harrods had a Christmas Wonderland Village happening on, one of their many floors, we were there in early September. We love Christmas so we browsed. Shopping makes us hungry, again our tips work for children. So we popped into a café for a spot of tea and a biscuit. By this time we had covered a lot of ground. We hopped on the Tube, being sure to "mind the gap" and headed back to our hotel for a rest before dinner. The Arts had other plans for us. Our train arriving and the curtain call for Wicked, just happened to meet up perfectly. So we do as we always do and spur of the moment got tickets to see Wicked in theatre. It was the perfect break we needed while still soaking in all London has to offer.
We ended our first day in London in Soho, where we had a divine seafood meal. I should warn you nothing in London is cheap, but we found Soho to be very upscale. We were certainly underdressed for the dining atmosphere. We did however, fit right in at the pub down the street from the restaurant. Here we spent the rest of the evening hanging out with some locals and an American who lived in Hungary, but was visiting friends in the UK. There was wonderful street karaoke and a police chase that made us feel like we had found our people.
It was also a good thing that the pub closed down by midnight, we were beat and still had 2 more days of sightseeing in London to do. With the miles we logged on day 1 we knew we would be knackered by the end of it.
Pip Pip Cheerio....for now.
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