London Eye & Tower Of London

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An early morning start to get to the London Eye before the queues. It was cold, wet and rain was forecast all day (and tomorrow). We arrived shortly before the ticket office opened and battled our way through more than 8 people to exchange our voucher.

We opted to wait under cover until the Eye started up half an hour later, but noticed they actually started it shortly after we had our ticket! Again, we had to wait *several* minutes in the queue to board our "flight". Glad we got up early and rushed there.

As impressive as the Eye is, the rainy weather made photographing anything frustrating as the glass capsules were covered in raindrops, and of course the visibility was limited. Regardless, it was a fantastic view and before we knew it the 28 minute ride was over.

Next stop was the changing of the Cavalry Guards down Whitehall - much less people than at the Buckingham Foot Fuards yesterday, a much closer vantage point and perhaps more interesting. On the way out Karina got the chance to be photographed with a guard on his horse. The amazing things was that this horse simply stood there and completely ignored every person that got their photo taken - until Karina stepped up. As soon as she stood next to him and touched him, he turned to her and started to nuzzle her to say "hello", and didn't stop until she left. It then completely ignored the next person. Karina says this is her favourite photo of the trip so far!

Back to Trafalgar Square for pictures (we'd passed by a few times in the last 2 days but never stopped to take photos) and Another Pret A Manger lunch and then off to Westminster Abbey. By now the weather had turned particularly nasty, with a biting wind to accompany the rain. We declined the 10 pounds per person to enter and satisfied ourselves that it looked impressive enough from the outside.

Time for the London Tower! And well worth the 4hr visit! We saw most of it, only missing one of the major towers (with the torture equipment - damn! Oh well, I have one on my desk at work - a PC!!!). Absolutely fascinating, and anyone who visits London and doesn't check it out is really missing out. We both loved it and took hundreds of photos in there!

We opted for an early night, so back on the underground to the raucous songs of Liverpool supporters on their way to the Chelsea v Liverpool semi-final. We squeezed out at Earls Court, only to be confronted with equally vocal fans at the local pub - under heavy watch from a large contingent of police. I would have loved to have gone to the game!

Instead, we picked up some takeaway Chinese from around the corner and had a relatively early night - attempting to catch up on all our blogging and a few housekeeping chores on the net. Another very full and interesting day. Only 1 more full day in London...

One real problem for me is fatigue. Not sure whether it's not having recovered from jet-lag (or even the days/weeks leading up to the wedding), or that the days are so full (and plenty of walking), or a combination of both, but by the end of the day I'm ready to crash. Only every few days do I find the energy or time to upload the photos to the flash stick (we have 3.3GB of photos from 9 days holidays!), check them out and type up my blog.

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