All hands were on deck early this morning, as we had booked an all-day excursion to visit some sights outside of London: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Oxford. It turned out to be a grueling, 14-hour marathon, although a good deal of the time was spent sitting in the seats of a coach bus with about 40 other tourists. Over the past several years, Dee and I have taken our fair share of tours (in Tuscany, Provence and Sicily, for example), so we're familiar with the rigid timetables and "cattle drive" feeling associated with them. But today's itinerary, as it turned out, was too crammed and hurried for our taste. The bus departed from the tour company's office, near Victoria Station, at 8:30AM. By 9:30 we reached Windsor Castle, about 25 miles west of London, in the ... read more

Today we had booked an all-day excursion to visit some notable sights in the county of Kent, southeast of London, in a region called "The Garden of England". The tour agenda included visits to Leeds Castle, Canterbury Cathedral, the White Cliffs of Dover, and a cruise on the Thames back to London from the town of Greenwich. We ordered a taxi for 7:20 AM, and 30 minutes later it delivered us to the tour office's staging point on Buckingham Palace Road, near London's Victoria Station, in the City of Westminster. The traffic in and around London, especially during rush hours, may best be described as "bloody" awful. It crawls along at a snail's pace, more so in the central districts, and the network of streets is like a maze. Of course, none of us are accustomed ... read more

Today Dee and I decided to take a break, while Larry and Danielle made their way to the London Eye, a gigantic Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the Thames between the Westminster and Hungerford Bridges, in the London Borough of Lambeth. During their outing today, they also enjoyed a short cruise on the Thames river. The structure is 443 feet tall, with a wheel diameter of 394 feet. When it first opened to the public in 2000, it was the world's tallest Ferris wheel, although its since been surpassed by Ferris wheels in China, Singapore and Las Vegas. It remains Europe's tallest Ferris wheel, however, and draws more than 3.75 million visitors annually. Each of the wheel's 32 oval-shaped passenger capsules hold up to 25 people, who are free to walk around inside the ... read more

Blue skies greeted us this morning, and throughout the day, as Londoners are enjoying a dose of gorgeous springtime weather. We spotted many of them soaking up the sunshine as we walked along the south bank of the Thames this afternoon. Who would have thought we'd find such glorious weather, in a place so notorious for rain and gloomy weather, but it's been a pleasant surprise so far. Larry and Danielle departed late in the morning for their pre-arranged walking tour with a private guide, who would rendezvous with them near St. Paul's cathedral for a 3-hour marathon tour of London's most notable sights. Meanwhile, Dee and I decided on a stroll along the Queen's Walk, a pedestrian promenade located on the southern bank of the Thames, which runs between the Tower Bridge and Lambeth Bridge. ... read more

This is our last full day in Tours, as we depart for London tomorrow afternoon, where friends Larry and Danielle Cobb arrived early this morning. They've already begun to set-up housekeeping in the apartment we'll be sharing with them, and we're looking forward to exploring London together. We had no formal agenda for today, other than packing. But we did take the bus into town around noon to have lunch, and to find some last-minute gifts for Sophie, who has done so much for us during our stay. The weather was very pleasant, with mostly sunny skies and mild temperatures (low 70s), so after Dee finished at the Galleries Lafayette we walked to the Place Plumereau for lunch. We would have much preferred to have our last meal in Tours at the great little restaurant we'd ... read more