London

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Well it took a full day for our 1 hour 45 minute flight from Paris to get to our hostel in Piccadilly. Leaving our Paris hostel around 8.45 in the morning and then wondering around the airport with the worst signage in the world we finally made it to Easyjet and our flight. At the other end we encountered the grilling of immigration that are extremely suspicious of our motives and I am sure they are thinking that Jay & I are going to try and work without visas and grill us some more about our finances etc.

With our shortest walk yet from train station exit to hostel we were tucked up into our hostel on Piccadilly Circus and out and about looking around for dinner in no time flat and making our loose plans for the next week on what we are going to see and do. I’ve some priorities like catching up with my old boss Graham and Jay wants to catch up with a couple of friends made during his Cambodia, Laos and Thailand part of his journey.

Our first day we bummed along to a free walking tour to get orientated around the city and you never know, maybe a little bit of history to go. Our guide was the standard effervescent personality going out of her way to make it as entertaining as possible as all these free tours work on a tip scenario and they all work hard for their tips as most participants are backpackers on budgets.

Our tour took us through Wellington square down past Buckingham Palace where we were just in time to see the changing of the guard and given the crowd, we won’t be coming back to watch the whole thing another day as there is a ridiculous amount of people crowded around and the chances of getting a good vantage point where you can see something are slim if you don’t feel like getting into location at 8am for an 11am event.... not for me, from here we walked down to Pall Mall, don’t know why it’s the most expensive street in town looked to be a rather bland and boring stretch of buildings to me and eventually ended up in Trafalgar Square. The pigeons have been culled so you aren’t treated to a souvenir bird poo splat or dive bombed by incoming swooping birds and as per the norm for this trip there is construction around, yippee more photos of scaffolding. At this stage of our trip we should be scaffolding experts. From here we are walked down the road a bit and towards Big Ben and more photo opportunities and the tour ends.

Jay and I walked across the bridge from here and wondered past the London Eye and back over millennium bridge an caught up with Matt who we met in Athens for the afternoon and ended up having dinner in a cruzy pub just down the road from the hostel and suddenly was time to call it a night and head back for some sleep.

This morning we headed out to the National Gallery before catching an awesome show called STOMP. This was 1 hour 40 minutes of pure raw energy where there was a fantastic mix of comedic timing and anything that could make a noise was used as a prop. Matchboxes, brooms, tin lids to literally the kitchen sink were used and made for the most amazing display of rhythm and beats. We were quite exhausted just watching and would go back and watch it again at the drop of a hat and would recommend anyone to go and see it.

We caught up with one of Jay’s mates for a quick drink in the evening in another cool pub and He and Jay caught up and agreed that we would catch up again on Sunday at his mates house in Notting Hill at the Carnival that is on which is the biggest street party in Europe.

Up nice and early today as we are off to see Stonehenge, Bath and Salisbury on an escorted tour. With a full bus of 49 people we headed out for our trek into the country side with our first stop in Salisbury to stop and look at the beautiful church there. Well Jay & I have seen enough churches on this trip so we opted to go for a walk around the town itself and meet back at the bus as the scheduled time.

Salisbury is a very pretty little town and could have spent at least another 2 or 3 hours just wondering around the quaint little streets and taking the time to wonder around and explore a little more but we are on a time schedule and need to make that bus or we pay our own way home. A short drive from here we are at Stonehenge.

So, Stonehenge. When I’ve watch the documentaries at home I somehow perceived that these ancient stones are massive and that the circle which they stand is huge. Well they are not and although they are fascinating to look at and these big “boulders” are massive and who ever erected them and carved them like “lego blocks” in that they fit into themselves to be more secure etc I was left somewhat underwhelmed. Was a great experience to look and see it and on entry you are given an audio guide that tells you what you are looking at and some of the theories behind this structure but Petra still wins hands down on the mysterious and mystic feel.

From Stonehenge we headed out to Bath were Jay and I ducked off to get high tea whilst the rest went to the old roman baths. We got to look around yet another beautiful and quaint town that could have had at least another 2 hours to wonder as there were so many little nooks and crannies that could have done with further investigations. After we all got back onto the bus we then had a good 3 hour or so trip back to London. Our guide for the day Jess was great giving out fantastic bits of historic entertainment with “Hoorah” and “Do you understand” being her pet words for the day. Her passion and knowledge of the kings and queens and the sordid details in between were delivered in a most entertaining way even if we were a captured market in a bus that you cannot escape.

On Friday we headed out to Saint Paul’s Cathedral and climbed up to the very top for some breathtaking views of London. It was extremely winding and was quite chilly but well worth the 500 and something steps to get to the top. Cheaper that heading up on the London Eye and we could spend longer at the top admiring the view. The Cathedral itself was quite simple compared to some that we have visited on this trip and in because of that I think I preferred it over the others. There wasn’t so much in your face riches but beautiful murals and mosaics on the ceiling.

From here we walked down to the London Bridge and then across the river to head to the Tower of London. Well we did a wrong turn at Albuquerque and walked a good 30 minutes the wrong way but we did see some beautiful apartments on the river that all seem to come with an Audi as part of the package. Well after catching a bus back to the right part of town I headed into the Tower of London and Jay went and did his own thing.

The Tower of London is deceivingly big. I got an audio guide to run through the standard bits of facts and history and help me work out how to get from point A to point B in there. I went and viewed the Royal Jewels fist as the queue was only short and wow, it is amazing how many diamonds and precious gems can sparkle in a crown!

After the visit of the Jewels I wondered through the armoury of King Arthur XIII where they have a lot of his body armour and that of the horses and all sorts of old medieval battle dress displays. I must say that by the end of his time King Arthur XIII was quite a hefty man and I pity an poor horse that had to carry him around with the extra weight of the metal body armour, him alone would have been heavy enough.

Within the Tower of London there is a torture chamber display with all sorts of macabre devices used on prisoners and morbidly fascinating as well. The stretching machine looks somewhat painful but then there was another that was looped around the crouched body and slowly tightened till one’s breath is squeeze out of them altogether. Right enough of that, in all I spent about 3 hours wondering within the wall of the Tower before deciding it was time to head back and catch up with Jay and get ready to head out to see Alison in Watford.

It was great to catch up with Alison for the night and it was quite a full house as there were 6 of her friends from Austria there to celebrate a birthday as well. With a BBQ on the go and some nice fresh salads as well it was a fun night catching up and making new friends. In the morning it was a case of everyone into taxi’s to the train station as we were all heading back into London.

We caught up with my old boss Graham and his family for Saturday lunch and it was so good to catch up and also for Jay to meet the Graham he has heard so much about when I actually worked for a living. Our lunch flew past and 2 ½ hours later we were saying our goodbyes and heading off to see more of London which turned out to be heading to Harrods and having a quick walk through the food hall with some guy in the pizza section singing as he tossed pizza bases into the air, pretty cool.

We had a couple of Aussie lads in our dorm the past few nights and they were off to Ministry of Sound on Saturday night and I said to Jay that he should go and have a boys night, I would have loved to have gone with them but didn’t have any appropriate footwear so the boys went off with Jay in a pair of borrowed shoes and they had a ball. Predictably Jay was the last one on the dance floor and the boys wanted to head back to the hostel earlier as they had managed to pick up a couple of girls....all fun and games getting them into the dorm and even funnier seeing the girls bolt in the morning.

Sunday we had arranged to go to the Notting Hill Carnival which is supposed to be the biggest street party in Europe. We got there about 12ish and the crowds weren’t too bad, however after about 3 hours of constant drum beats mainly of Caribbean decent we had had enough and called it a day. Getting out was another thing altogether and took nearly ½ hour to find our way out. Along with it some rather testy locals and I can see why fights can erupt so easily in London as everyone seems to be agro and on edge and just spoiling for an argument. I was relieved to exit the party zone and get back to Piccadilly and some normality.

Well this morning is our last morning in Europe. We are off to Montreal today and phase 2 of our wonderful adventure. With a nice easy train ride and connection to Heathrow we were checked in and waiting in transit for our 7 hour flight.

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