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Published: September 23rd 2007
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The day started as all days should - with a little sleep in and a full English breakfast, served of course ;-) After grabbing a feed, we headed into town to find the ‘Hop on Hop Off’ bus stop to give us an overview of London so we could plan the next four days - although Chelle already had a pretty detailed itinerary!
We found the Tour stop and noticed it was next to Madam Tussauds, a must see attraction for our whirlwind tour of London (according to Chelle! She had been here on her last trip as a kid, and had excellent memories of the place, so wanted to go back - naturally). Well, let me tell you, she was in her element! I don’t know how many photos she took, but she would have given the Paparazzi a run for their money. There was Celebs, left, right, and centre, as we walked into the first room, and Chelle was acting like a kid in a candy store. She was a bit surprised about the height of some of the celebrities (obviously Tom Cruise, but also a lot of the females - Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Anniston were tiny!)
I had to check out the Chamber of Horrors exhibition by myself, as you know who was too scared, but even Chelle got a bit of a fright reading about a serial killer outside of the exhibition. Lost in thought, another woman charged in front of her - scaring the crap our Michelle who thought it was the killer themselves! She would have freaked out inside the exhibit, where it was pitch black and freaks were running around, jumping out of the shadows.
Anyway, Chelle had more than enough excitement in Tussauds. The next stop was the Hop on Hop Off Bus. We quickly found out that London is a beautiful city with simular architecture to a lot of the big city’s in Europe and New York. The full loop took over two hours, and that was only one of four loops. The trip passed over the Thames river four times, including the famous London Bridge, as well as numerous statues and monuments, governmental buildings and architectural monoliths. Sounds like it was worth the trip.
We jotted down a couple of points of interest along the way and took the time to rest our legs. One landmark
that we noted was Hamleys Toy Store. This is a massive Toy Store with five levels. Chelle stepped back into her childhood, AGAIN, checking out the Barbie collection while I checked out the boys toys. It was surprisingly cool.
Our next stop was back at the hotel for a pit stop. After a quick break, we headed to our night time entertainment. We decided to do the Jack the Ripper walk with London Walks, as it came highly recommended. While we waited at the train station we were surprised at the number of people arriving. The group split into two (about fifty people each) and headed off into the dark streets.
I was very impressed by the tour guide’s ability to capture the imagination of the crowd. I guess it helps when you are standing in a dark alley, with someone describing in detail, how a forty year old run down prostitute has her face bashed, throat slashed, and is disembowelled with her intestines pulled out and thrown over her shoulder. And all this, only ten meters around the corner from a nightwatchmen who didn’t hear a thing! And it gets worse!
The fifth murder sight visited
- yes, you walk to the actual sights - is of a 27yr old prostitute who was unlucky enough to invite Jack home, where he did the works! Including disembowelment, amputation, puree of organs, with blood and body parts spread over the walls, ceiling, and floor. The floor was covered in a bloody slime that caused the first policeman on the scene to slide across the floor, and required a path to be cleared to access the body. Fascinating stuff! No wonder 6 people have fainted doing this tour!
It wasn’t all blood and guts though, and we learnt a lot about London in the early days, as well as the population - of which 40 000 of the women were prostitutes! The Jack theories were also very interesting - who was he, why did he commit the crimes, why did he stop? You’ll have to do the tour to find out more!
After the tour, we had to find our way back to the Metro and then through Kings Cross to our hotel - it wasn’t that bad! Luckily there was a Hero marathon on TV, which kept us up until after midnight - whoops! A bit
too much action for one night I think!
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