Advertisement
Published: February 25th 2008
Friday morning, I got up at 5:00 (that would be 11:00 Thursday night in the midwest) to catch a train to London. This was my first time navigating the train systems over here, but it went pretty well. I was able to stay with a girl from Central who is studying in the London program and she helped me get around town. We did some traveling on the tube and a double decker bus!
Our first stop in London was the wax museum called Madame Tussaud's. We spent a good couple hours here and had a great time taking pictures with all of the famous "people". The crowds were ridiculous though, especially the queue to get close to Captain Jack Sparrow!
After the wax museum, we headed downtown and toured Westminster Abbey. This was the most amazing building I've ever seen. The vaulted ceiling was higher than any of the other cathedrals we've been to and in some places the molding was even more extravagent. We saw the tombs of many former kings and queens and the official coronation chair that has been in use since the 1400s. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take any pictures inside, though I
did pull out the camera once in the courtyard 😊
After Westminster, we met Kayla and hung out in her dorm most of the night. It had been a long day; we'd done a lot of walking with our backpacks. It felt good just to relax.
We were up early on Saturday though. We bought a day pass for the tube and headed out to the Natural History Museum. I could have spent the whole weekend here. We didn't get to spend very much time in the exhibits and only made it to about half of them. The dinosaurs were really neat and, as always the interactive stuff was fun. The had a really interesting Darwin exhibit that you had to book a tour for and we didn't have time for it, so I will definitely have to go back sometime.
Next, we went down to the Tower Bridge, took some pictures and walked along the river. Then we hopped on a bus that we thought would take us to the London Eye. Instead we ended up in a rather dodgy area in southern London. We eventually figured the schedules out and managed to catch a double
decker back.
Then came the best part of the whole weekend - riding the London Eye. This is the big ferris wheel right on the Thames River. The whole thing rotates once about every half hour. You ride in big glass capsules with a bench in the middle but no one ever sits because you're running from side to side trying to find the best view. Our flight was just after dusk so the skyline was all lit up and quite beautiful.
After our ride, we walked to Buckingham Palace, mostly just to say we'd been there. There wasn't a whole lot to see but it was pretty, and I took a few nice pictures.
Sunday morning, we got up early again with our backpacks and headed back out to the Tower of London and took the tour. Our guide was very, shall we say, enthusiastic? We learned a lot of English history from him though. We saw where the kings and queens of England lived for about 400 years, where King Henry the 6th supposedly died, and where the held and tortured thousands of prisoners and 'traitors to the throne. They also had displays of the
armor and weapons used in different wars. There was also the House of Jewels which displayed the crowns of past monarchs.
On the way back to our train station, we stopped at King's Cross Station - the one from the Harry Potter books - and took some photos...
We made it back safe and sound by 8:00. The weather was great all weekend. The only time it rained was when we got on the train in Bangor Friday morning. We didn't get to see everything I wanted, but it was a full weekend. I'm exhausted!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.169s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1358s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Madame Tussaud's
Grandpa West
non-member comment
London - Madame Tussaud's
What a HAM you are - - - My favorite was with Humphry Bogart. Casablanca is my all time favorite movie. Thanks for sharing your great adventure with us. Love, Grandpa West