London, here we are

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Day 1 - Monday 25th August

We arrived at 6:35am London time after a bum numbing flight from Bangkok (there’s got to be serious money in making aeroplane seats comfortable) Anyway, with minimal sleep and much excitement we arrived to be met by our tour leader Buddy and be whisked away on a morning tour of London. Well that was the plan, unfortunately Buddy slept in throwing everything into disarray. Luckily for us our tour guide, Warren, was on the job and loaded us onto the coach and got us ready to go. Just as we were about to leave we saw Buddy scurrying across the car park with a slightly embarrassed look on his face - he knows there’s a serious fine waiting for him for that one.

Now all aboard and it was time to head down the M4 past where Mary Poppins was filmed to London. On the way we passed the 3 Kings Hotel with its distinctive sign showing the 3 Kings, Henry VIII, Charles I and Elvis. First stop was Kensington Palace and a chance for a group photo with our new banner - it looks great!!!

From there it was onto Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial. Apparently Queen Victoria was a smitten woman and when Albert died had memorials erected all over the place. We travelled on past the Museum of Natural history with fantastic architecture of cathedral style arches and statues of animals on the roof line and reptiles below the windows - amazing. We saw Harrods - the perfect shopping store, for the women 300 shopping departments, for the men 2 pubs - that’s what I call shopping.

From there it was like something out of European Vacation - a highlight for me was going around the same roundabout as in the movie as the tour guide called out “Big Ben, Houses of Parliament” - it was all I could do to not burst out laughing.

On our day trip we saw;

Hyde Park - former hunting reserve for the royal family
Australian War Memorial - built by a guy from Orange - this made our fellow travellers the Orange Emus very proud - quite rightly!!
Marble Arch - moved from the entrance to Buckingham Palace to be the Gates to Hyde Park - why?? I think they just liked moving big heavy blocks of stone around if they got bored.
Barkley Square - not a nightingale in sight.
The Ritz Hotel where Charlie Chaplin came 32nd in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest
Piccadilly Circus with its 55 theatres
Trafalgar Square with Nelsons Column - apparently this is the point all distances from London are measured (save that up for a future trivia night)

On we travelled, past Downing Street, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, New Scotland Yard before stopping at Buckingham Palace with all the others waiting to see the changing of the guard. We were booked in to a ride on the London eye so no changing of the guard for us. On we travelled ……

The London Eye was pretty good - no crowds helped - its 135m tall and takes 30min to do a revolution an gives a great view of London - check out the photos.
From there it was on to the City of London, which is 1 mile square and built in Roman times, via London tower and Tower Bridge. There we saw St Pauls Cathedral, the first domed building in London. It was built by a guy called Christopher Wren who seemed to have built everything in London after the great fire in 1660’s

And all that was before we checked into our hotel at 1:30pm - no wonder we were shattered. After check-in we all went our own way, some shopping, some sleeping, most in the corner pub sampling local brews and fish and chips. We’re simple men with simple tastes.

That night we went to another pub just up the road for diner and refreshments where we were joined by the Moverleys - it’s sure to be a quiet day tomorrow as everyone hooked into those refreshments.

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