Day 2: London

The alarm went off at 6:30am, and it was fairly remarkable that we were up and about and walking up Buckingham Palace Rd. shortly after 7am, especially considering that, just two days ago, we would have just been falling sleep not too much earlier than that local time.  We had been warned that the anti-Brexit protest would shut down this whole area, and wanted to see what we could before that happened. It was wonderful to see Westminster in those early hours, slower and quieter and certainly less crowded. Our first stop was again at the Subway near Victoria Coach Station. We enjoyed healthy breakfast sandwiches and continued on toward the palace. 

The Royal Mews gates were open; the royal horses had just been exercised,

 and we caught a glimpse of them as they clip clopped across the cobblestones 

into the Mews. 


A side view of Buckingham Palace

A local man walking his dog directed us down a tree lined street delightfully named Birdcage Walk Rd. that runs along the other side of St. James Park opposite The Mall.  It’s rather surreal to see in person what I’ve seen on TV all my life. Along the way, we passed by the Guards Museum and the offices of the Queen’s Coldstream Guards and kicked through the deep piles of fall leaves lining the sidewalk. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and sunny. 

We walked through a nearly empty Parliament Square, gazed up at the scaffolding almost totally covering Big Ben as he gets a facelift until 2021, and walked past the Palace of Westminster, which houses the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We lingered on Westminster Bridge over the River Thames, taking photos first one direction, toward Parliament, and then the other, with the London Eye on the South Bank of the Thames in front of the County Hall building. We traded in our Golden Tours London Eye voucher for tickets, and were already on the big wheel at its published opening time of 10am.

The Elizabeth Tower (formerly the Clock Tower) housing Big Ben.  

Westminster Bridge lamp post and the London Eye. 

It was a perfect day to ride the London Eye, and for about 30 minutes we had increasingly higher views up and down the River Thames.

Looking toward the Tower Bridge...


...and toward the Palace of Westminster. 

The trip around on the wheel took just over 30 minutes, and afterward we climbed stairs over the Shrek Adventure which has been placed in front of the County Hall (so disappointing, that) to see some beautiful gardens on its roof. 

We stopped for coffee at an outdoor cafe to warm up a little (temps were in the low 50s by then) and next crossed back over the Westminster Bridge and along the river to the pier for the river cruises boats. Unlimited rides on the Circular Cruise boat was included in our HOHO tickets, and we boarded the boat and rode it down to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. This narrated tour provided a great view of London from the water and was accompanied by commentary along the way explaining what we were seeing. 

It seems that, like Melbourne architects, British architects have also been DUI (designing under the influence). 

The two new buildings in the middle are referred to as the Cheese Grater and the Gherkin (as in pickle). 

Tower of London from the River Thames

Cruising under the Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge with Western Europe’s tallest building, The Shard, on the left. 

We disembarked at St. Katharine’s Pier just past the Tower Bridge and discovered a wonderful street food area featuring food from all over the world. It was lunch time by then, and it had been a long time since breakfast at Subway. I chose Indian food, a combo garbanzo bean and spinach curry served over rice. 

St. Katharine’s Pier street food vendors 

Spanish paella

My lunch choice

After lunch, we climbed up to the street level and walked across Tower Bridge.  We boarded a Golden Tours HOHO bus on the other side of the bridge, intending to get a Red Loop bus, but, when a Blue Loop bus arrived after a 30 minute wait, we talked with the driver.  Apparently, Central London, the same area we had walked through hours earlier, was now closed off due to the protest march, and all the buses were running very late and very different routes than usual. We decided to board that bus and chose seats on the bus’ upper level.  It was a good choice for three reasons:  the bus quickly filled up; traffic was nearly at a standstill and we had the best tour guide who kept us very entertained as the bus crawled through traffic and tried to find a route across the river to the Victoria area. This process took nearly two hours, and we were especially happy that this bus would eventually return us to Victoria Station right around the corner from our hotel. 

Another view of The Shard, overlooking historic buildings in the foreground. 

As the bus inched around the roundabout at the end of the Lambeth Bridge, our guide pointed out that this was the Chevy Chase roundabout, the one that tied up Chevy for an entire day in the movie National Lampoon’s European Vacation. We had been laughing about that since we arrived in London yesterday, entertaining ourselves with “Look kids, there’s Big Ben” every time we saw the clock. Our driver took the bus down streets that ran along the barricaded protest route, and we could see huge crowds of people (early estimates were 500-700 thousand) participating in the march. We were very happy we had gotten an early start this morning and walked down those streets when they were nearly empty. 

It was after 4pm by the time we returned to the Comfort Inn Buckingham Palace Rd. We had a quick clean up and, taking one of our trusty Princess tote bags, walked a few blocks to the nearest large Sainsburys supermarket to pick up the things we had been unable to bring from home. We shopped for about a month’s worth of items - toothpaste, mouthwash, antibacterial hand wipes, vitamins, laundry detergent and makeup romoval cloths- and, before we left the store, picked up a yummy fancy chocolate cupcake for Umang at the reception desk of our hotel. He has been fantastic to us, very friendly and helpful. 

We stopped by St. George’s Tavern for dinner, and sat at picnic tables on the sidewalk while I had a lentil curry and G had shepherds pie. It was just after dark as we carefully walked back to the hotel, feeling sated and tired and that we had made the best out of our day and a half in London, especially considering that we had to work around the protest. While that had hampered us a bit, the weather had been perfect. Unsurprisingly, G had asked me over dinner if I could spend a week here.  “Easily”. A month? “Well...maybe, but two weeks would be better”. 

So many places, so little time. ;-)

Tomorrow, we board the Sapphire Princess in Southampton. 

Monday, we’ll have lunch in Paris. 

Life is good. :-)