So last weekend Carly and I took our first trip to London! It was a 3 hour train ride and then a quick tube trip over to our hotel. On the tube, Carly and I bought Oyster Cards. They're basically debit cards for the tube and they offer discounted rates. All you do is put money on it as you need it and you can travel the tube! We saved ours for our next London trip. On to our hotel!
We stayed at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel
This is our room. Two queen beds. Clearly too fancy for the likes of Carly and I.
Quite possibly the best rain shower ever
The fancy chicken burger from room service.
Our hotel was in a prime location. It was close to a tube station and we could see some famous monuments right out our window!
I forget what this building is called but it's a famous London building I swear.
Chew Street?
We arrived in London late Thursday so we rested up for a big day of touring on Friday! Our day started with the Sandeman's New Europe Free Royal Walking Tour. This is the 3rd Sandeman's tour we've been on for two reasons
1 - Free
2 - They're amazing with wonderful and interactive tour guides. I 100% recommend them for anyone visiting cities in Europe.
So here's a bunch of pics from the tour and some we took walking around on our own with some captions:
Wellington Arch. Named after the Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon
The Lord Mayor of London riding around because why not have a horse & carriage escort you everywhere.
Equestrian crossing
Green Park
Gates around Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace. The Queen was in there! The particular flag on the top signifies that she is in the residence.
Guard outside Clarence House, where Prince Charles lives when he's in London.
He was there too!
The Athenian Club. A fancy-schmancy English gentleman's club (not a strip club) that has a 30 year waiting list.
Typical tourist picture
Nelson's column
Nelson's column's lions
Center of the city of Westminster
Big Ben
Abraham Lincoln? Okay.
Westminster Abbey where Will and Kate were married <3
London Eye
10 Downing Street. The black building behind the bars. Its basically the same thing as the White House.
St. James' Palace built by King Henry VIII. It's the Queen's official address. That's our tour guide Rachel.
We headed back to our magnificent hotel to get ready to see Wicked! I know there's this rumor that English theater tickets are cheaper and that is a complete lie. Well, the nosebleed seats are cheaper but anything closer than 5 rows from the back is pretty comparable or wayyy more expensive. But Wicked was totally worth it especially since it was my first time seeing the show
The next day we got up super early again for some more touring. In the morning we got up early and headed to Buckingham Palace again to see the changing of the guard. Carly and I were lucky enough to get spots right against the front gate! If you look at the picture below, to the right of the lamp post on the left there is a black iron half-fence thing. That's where we were!
The crowd
The band
New guard coming to replace Old Guard. They just came from the Wicked Witch of the West's Castle
St. Paul's
St. Paul's
Statue of Queen Victoria
Statue of Eros
Piccadilly Circus
Olympic countdown!!
Our final day of touring was surprisingly packed as well! Our train was leaving at 8pm so we had all day to finish up London. We started at the Tower of London
Hahahaha! Only my Mom will understand why I put this picture in here.
Entrance to the Tower of London
Traitor's Gate
A better view of Tower Bridge
One of the Tower's famous ravens. Ravens have been kept at the Tower for hundreds of years. Their wings are clipped so they can't get away. Now don't get all PETA about it. These birds live like kings and queens and are fed a delicious and healthy diet, hence the massive birds in my pictures below, and they can still fly but only for short distances. Legend has it that if the ravens ever leave the tower, the Crown will fall and England will cease to exist. A bit dramatic but still a fun superstition.
Ravens also make the strangest bird sound ever. It's like a door creaking open. Watch the video below to see what I mean.
Massive cannon
Model of the tower when it was fully functional
The White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London built by William the Conqueror in 1066
Next we went to the British Museum!
Front of the museum
Imhotep
The Rosetta Stone
The museum was crowded and smelled funny so we left and went to the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park
Our final stop was Shakespeare's Globe Theater
Our tour was short but we packed a lot of things into just 3 days! below are 3 panoramic pictures I took from our tour that I want to share to show off my technical skills
Houses of Parliament
St. James' Palace
The Tower of London
And here are the Changing of the Guard videos!
After the guards were assembled in the front of Buckingham Palace, the Old Guard began playing an upbeat song, which seemed strange for a military procession. Turns out they were playing for the tourists and it was the Austin Powers theme song.
The New Band marching out
I had a video of the Old Guard and Band marching out but its not working right now :/
And that was our awesome trip! We're going back to London when its a bit warmer and we're going to see the inside of Buckingham Palace, go on the London Eye, take an open-top bus tour and a river cruise tour!
Now, on to reader statistics! I'll keep it short but basically I just want to thank everyone who takes the time out to read my blog. Whether its ever week or you only read once its cool to know people like to read what I write. And I think everyone should listen to me anyway so its a super cool ego boost too! Haha!
Blogger tracks some information from you readers every time you click my blog link. No personal stuff though so don't worry! I'm not tech savvy enough to figure that stuff out anyway lol.
The majority of readers come from the USA! 874 page view from the good ol' US of A as of this posting.
Next is the UK with 94 page views (I assume that's all Carly lol!)
A surprising 3rd place finish goes to Russia with 20 page views! Добро пожаловать! Спасибо за чтение! (That's supposed to say 'Welcome! Thank you for reading!' but I used Google Translate so if its wrong, sorry lol).
Germany comes in 4th with 15 page views. I'll be visiting in March! Herzlich Willkommen! Vielen Dank fürs Lesen! (Google Translate helped here too. And all the other languages besides Spanish)
5th is Spain with 9 views. Bienvenido y gracias por leer! (I did this one on my own :) )
India, Latvia and Turkey all have 2 views each.
Turkish: Hoşgeldiniz! Okuma için teşekkür ederiz!
Hindi (National language of India): आपका स्वागत है! आप पढ़ने के लिए धन्यवाद!
Latvian: Laipni lūdzam! Paldies par lasījumā
Finally, we have Estonia with 1 page view. Tere tulemast! Täname, et lugemine!
Once again, thanks everyone for taking time out to read my blog! I really appreciate it!
Until next time :)
xo Becstar
xo Becstar
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