Blogs from Balham, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Today was an extremely busy day, but a very good day. I spent the day in central London, specifically in and around Whitehall. The plan was to see as many of the sites around that street as humanly possible in one day. I managed four of them, but it wasn't from a lack of trying. On my list of sites for the day I had them listed in order of close, so that I could save the later ones, well for later. Unfortunately, after repeated attempts I wasn't able to find the Guard Museum, which I wasn't happy about. My next stop was going to be the Household Cavalry Museum, but when I tried in the morning, it was blocked off...found out later why. So, I turned my attention the one museum on this street that ... read more

Today I went to the Tower of London. I knew that it was a fortification that was started by William the Conqueror, but I wasn't prepared for what it really is. I for some reason, always thought that it was literally a tower, and it's not. It's a castle. And, it's huge. It's this amazing old building with loads of history. It has many areas that were built in different centuries, some that still stand were dated as far back as the 1200s, which is really neat. The stairs though in many of the buildings are so narrow and small that it made me wonder what kind of feet people had back in the day. I stood on the spot where many a prisoner, including Ann Boleyn, lost their lives, via beheadings. It's marked with a ... read more

The second part of my day was a trip to Oxford. This is one of the world's leading universities. Over the years it has turned out British Prime Ministers and other world leaders. It has also been where famous writers, artists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals have been trained. it has been the location of hire education for hundreds of years. The some of the buildings in the city are extremely old and others are roughly a century old or a little more. I took a hop-on hop-off bus tour around the city and did actually go into any of the colleges. The college grounds are restricted at certain times of the year and the day I chose to visit, they were having a graduation ceremony. The grounds were packed with family and friends and graduates. ... read more

Day 10: A Mixed day Today I took the river cruise to Greenwich. I should mention before I begin that before coming to England one of the first "day trips" I had planned was Greenwich. I had been looking forward to seeing the Maritime Museum, the Prime Meridian and Greenwich. Unfortunately, I found Greenwich to be disappointing. The National Maritime Museum is being renovated, so much of their displays on the 2nd and 3rd floors are closed to the public. The Cutty Sark is still being repaired since the devastating fire in 2007, but that I knew prior to going to England. I had been so looking forward to seeing the Sark and was disappointed to read that they'd pushed the re-launch date to spring 2012. After leaving the National Maritime Museum (mainly because the fire ... read more