Stopover in London

"Kitty cat, kitty cat, where have you been?"

"I went up to London to visit the Queen!"

By sheer chance, we saw the Queen in London. She was returning to Buckingham Palace after her birthday parade. She is the lady in the green hat in the carriage!

We stopped over in London en route to the States for summer vacation. We arrived at London Heathrow and took the Tube downtown. We stayed at the Generator Hostel. Not as nice as the one in Berlin, but a bargain nonetheless.

We went out for the free walking tour of London and got to see all the normal stuff. We stopped at the first telephone booth we saw for the traditional picture. The tour guide says that the city tried to do away with them and there was an enormous outcry by the traditionalists. He says about half of the public phones are red boxes and the rest are modernized. He also claims that the biggest buyers of used telephone boxes are Japanese businessmen who take them home and have them made into shower stalls!

We saw the reproduction of the Globe Theater from across the Thames River. It is supposed to be long, slow and expensive to get to visit it. The guide claims it is the only wooden walled / thatched roof structure in the city (fire codes).

We stood on the re-built London Bridge. The original is, of course, at Lake Havasu in Arizona. Jim has been on it. The guide said the guy thought he was buying the Tower Bridge! Jim doesn't believe it.

As usual, we stopped at Starbucks. The London souvenir mug was prettier than the England one. Also, we haven't actually visited "England", just London.

Like every other visitor to London, we visited Trafalgar Square. Big Ben is waaaay in the background and Lord Nelson is on top of the column where you can't see him. We walked around in the National Gallery, too. A block over was the National Portrait Gallery. We visited it, too. All the museums we visited were free (donations accepted).


The Clock Tower (better known as Big Ben). The name Big Ben used to only apply to the main bell, but is now used for the entire works.

We had lunch and dinner at Covent Garden. It looks like it should be spelled "convent", but they made a spelling mistake a looong time ago and have never corrected it.

The market has lots of farmers market stuff, crafts and restaurants. Nice place!

The traditional double-deckers are everywhere. We didn't ride one, but they sure look nifty. The bus and tube system have an "Oyster Pass" system. You load your card with money and just wave it over the sensor when you get on and get off. It was a lot cheaper than paying for individual tickets.

The London Eye is a giant Ferris Wheel. Don't ever call it that. They get real upset. British Air sponsors it, too.
From Trafalgar Square, we went through the Palace Gate towards Buckingham Palace. We knew that the Queen would be coming through for her birthday at about 10 am, so we made sure to miss that. We thought it would be safe to go take pictures in the afternoon.

We were surprised to see the Queen after avoiding the morning crowds. We forgot that she had to come BACK from her morning parade.

After waiting for the parade to be over, we went into St. James Park. Lovely place.

This is the Palace from a bridge in the park. This was the only reason we were there. You can tell the Queen is there because her standard is flying.

The guards had to go somewhere after the parade, too. A lot of them went through the park!

We had a wonderful time in Merrye Olde Englande! Two days wasn't long enough.