Heading to London

Derek and I have made it home from a whirlwind trip through London.  People ask us what we saw, and we just look at each other and smile.  We walked everywhere (with the occasional tube ride thrown in whenever the walk was going to be an hour or more to the destination), and saw so much.  So here is my attempt at compiling the places we saw and experiences we had.  I should also mention that it was Derek's first trip to London, and my first trip as a tourist since a school trip in '99, so we had lots to see, all of which was knew to Derek, and quite a bit which was new to me.

The Trip Down

Initially we debated whether to go by train or plane, which would be the most cost-effective, and that debate was still going on when I received a promotional email from National Express telling me about their 4 day sale on east coast tickets: £9 each way regardless of the distance.  Well that settled that!  Then we weren't sure where to stay, but friends gave us some suggestions and we picked a St. David's Hotel by Paddington Station.  I couldn't remember how tickets for the underground work there (and assumed things had probably changed over the past decade), and another friend stepped in with info on the Oyster Card, a card which we pre-load with money and then swipe and the beginning and end of each trip, and which always charges a lower fare than single tickets.

On our first night after finding our hotel and settling into our tiny room, we had supper (Derek had packed one for us back in Edinburgh, as well as lunch for the next day) and then went out for a walk.  We headed a couple blocks south to Hyde Park, where we heard music in the distance.  It turns out that the musical festival Hyde Park Calling 2009 was on, and Neil Young was going to be playing that evening.  We sat down outside the gates at the side of the fenced in area with a bunch of others and listened for about an hour, but not recognizing any of the songs, we headed home for good night's sleep.  We later found out that Paul McCartney made a surprise appearance to join in Young's encore (sigh).

Day One (Sunday)

First up was the Tower of London.  A quick tube ride and we were on the banks of the Thames, with the Tower stretching in front of us.  We'd bought our tickets ahead of time online to save a bit of money, but ended up stuck in line (queuing) for awhile.  We went on the guided tour with at least 50 others, and then spent a couple hours wandering around the various buildings.  We saw the crown jewels, some of the dungeons, the torture exhibit, and (what I was really looking forward to) the special exhibition of Henry VIII's armour through the years.  In honour of the 500th anniversary since he came to the throne they've put together the many pieces of his armour (and his horses' armour) from several museums and are displaying them beautifully, as well as calculating his size through the years.  It was great.

After taking refuge under an archway in the Tower during a downpour and learning about some of the medieval artillery in the moat, we headed out to walk across Tower Bridge.  We then walked east along the Thames before crossing back across London Bridge.  We navigated our was through the streets to see St. Paul's Cathedral, and after admiring its size and beauty it was getting close to dinner time, so we found a nearby tube station and headed home.  M&S sandwiches made for a good and quick dinner before heading back to Hyde Park to listen to Bruce Springsteen headlining the evening's show.  In the hour that we listened we only recognized one song (it turns out that he's just released an album), so we headed back to the room for a bit of Big Brother before resting up for the big day ahead.

There's so much to write about that I'm going to take a couple days to describe the journey.  I hope I don't forget much!