London calling..

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London needs no introduction. On a bright Saturday morning, my friends and I decided to visit London from Nottingham. London is approximately 130 miles from Nottingham.

Tower Bridge is a great tourist attraction in London. We walked along the length of the bridge before spending some time on the sidewalk on one end of the bridge. It is a beautiful sight of the bridge standing majestically over river Thames. The tower bridge is a drawbridge meaning it opens into two to let big boats pass through . Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a glimpse of the tower bridge in operation.

We then went to see Westminster Abbey and the Big Ben. London Eye was visible from across the road. The clock struck an hour and Big Ben chimed. It was amazing to see that the clock had been maintained so well for more than a century after its construction and to this day it chimes exactly at the marked time.

We then made our way to Buckingham palace. Again , as luck would have it, we missed the change of guard ! Just clicked few photos in front of the gate. However, when my husband had visited , he got to see the change of guard.

Later, we went to Royal Observatory Greenwich , where the prime meridian of the earth passes through – the GMT. The observatory houses telescopes ranging back to the 18^th century and has artefacts and tons of information on astronomy. There is also a line marked ‘Prime Meridian of the world’ at longitude 0⁰ 0’ 0” and major cities of the world are marked on either sides of the line(in longitudinal degrees) with respect to their position from the prime meridian. Astronomy enthusiasts would love this place!

And then we went to the world-famous Madame Tussauds wax museum. It was crowded but looking at the wax statues of famous personalities which appeared nothing less than live ones, I was stumped. The perfection in every detail was commendable.

We ended the day with a ride on London eye. We could see London lit up in colours. The Abbey and Big Ben appeared stunning in their yellows.

There is so much more to see in London ( which I missed mostly) – The Trafalgar square , British Museum , Tower of London , O2 Arena and if you want to go shopping, where else than Oxford street and Piccadilly Circus . And there are many more tourist attractions in London that will keep you busy while you are in London. Public transport in London is amazing. There is tube, local double decker buses and hop on-hop off. Moving around London is never difficult.

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