London - the sights

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Wednesday was a beautiful hot sunny day, perfect for our walk around of the main sights. We started off with the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We got there half an hour early which was just as well as the crowds were enormous. The girls got a good spot up at the fence. It was quite impressive to start with, all the pomp and ceremony, uniforms, horses, and brass band, but after 45 minutes of it, we’d well and truly had enough. There were some quite long periods during that time where nothing seemed to be happening (except two guys marching from one end of the palace to the other – patrolling the perimeter?) so it was all quite boring. It was interesting to see the police actually doing the real work of guarding the palace, with the ‘guards’ all show.

We then walked through the parks up to Harrods, squirrel spotting all the way (dozens of them). They were not as ratty looking as the New York ones, and were quite cute when nibbling on peanuts, or running along with their tail following in a wave formation.

Harrods was fun for a browse, especially up in the pet department. There was every type of clothing item for dogs, a lot of them designer and costing hundreds of pounds. They had chewing toys in the shape of handbags labelled chewy vuitton, and other plays on designer names. As well as selling pets (thousands of pounds each), there was a pet day spa and gym. They both had glass fronts so we could view the action inside. There were a few dogs being pampered at the spa, but none in the gym, which consisted of a treadmill with a movie up front playing 101 Dalmations. Very cute, and I’m sure very practical for the rich customers while doing their shopping.

We carried on up through Hyde park past the massive gaudy King Albert memorial to Kensington Palace. They are currently spending 12 million pounds renovating it so not much was open to the public. It had been a big walking day to this point so we caught the tube back to Westminster and toured the abbey. It’s impressive how many dead kings and others are in there. We spent most of our time there trying to marry up the scenes we’d seen on TV of the royal wedding to the actual layout. Our end conclusion was that hardly anyone in the church would have seen much except on the TV screens like the rest of us. As we were about to leave we discovered a side room with a big photo display of the wedding which helped us fill in the bits we hadn’t worked out.

We did the walk by and photo opps of Big Ben and 10 Downing St on the way to the London Eye. It was good getting the London Eye view after having been most places by now, so we could spot everything and see how far we had in fact walked.

Thursday started off with a walk around the new Olympic site (which is walking distance from Rhondas place). The only two cafes at the site were NZ owned so we had a coffee break at one of them, enjoying being able to order a long black and flat white and anzac biscuit. The Olympic site was interesting to see, with most buildings appearing to be fully completed, with just landscaping and paths to be finished. They were only half way through a new structure that they are hoping to be a new London icon – a tall snaking red steel Eiffel type steel tower. It’ll have a restaurant at the top, and be twice the height of the main stadium its next to. The basketball stadium, which looked like a big bouncy castle mat, has been designed to be dismantled afterwards and transported to a new yet to be determined site (perhaps the Rio Olympics).

After lunch at Wagamamas (a funky sit down fast food noodle place), we went to the Tower of London. This castle was quite different to the French kings holiday homes we saw in the Loire valley. Internally there was a lot more wood in its construction, and smaller rooms so it felt warmer and more homely. Architecturally though it was much more of a fortress, and a defensive building with its little slit arrow windows, turrets and moats. The highlight was seeing the crown jewels despite having to queue for about half an hour with some quite pushy tourists. The size of the diamonds and precious stones in the crowns made it hard to believe they were real. There was also an impressive huge collection of gold plates, cups and massive punch bowl. The amount of gold in that cabinet alone was quite mind boggling.

From the tower we caught the ferry up the Thames for a nice little cruise to Greenwich. Most of the green was blocked off and being set up for some events to practice for the Olympics, but we climbed the hill to the observatory anyway for the view and photos of the Greenwich mean line. We caught the DLR (driverless trains) back to Rhondas, with the girls managing to get the ‘drivers’ seats at the front.

Alison came back to London this evening (after spending a few nights with her in laws) and stayed with us at Rhondas so we are now even cosier than cosy with six of us in the one bedroom flat. We managed quite well though, just needing to allow extra time in the mornings to process us all through the bathroom.

Friday being our last day in London, and having ticked of most of the touristy things we let Olivia get her final dose of retail therapy on Oxford St. The only interruption to our shopping day was a visit to Madame Tussauds, which we walked to from Oxford St. It was great for the photo opportunities, but we all hated the numbers and pushiness of the other tourists. It was interesting to see the actual size of some of the stars, particularly the female actresses and singers – they were all tiny!

Friday night we went to Priscilla which was fantastic although we didn’t have the best seats being up at the highest level, and feeling like we could fall off, it was so steep. The costumes and singing was awesome, and we all loved the character Cynthia – the Vietnamese mail order bride with her ping pong ball tricks and screeching at her husband.

The week in London as with the week in Paris and New York was full on visiting all the must see sights, and left us looking forward to a slower pace, more space, less crowds and less pollution. The pollution here has left my eyes stinging and throat scratchy. It was great spending the time with Rhonda, and we’ve had lots of fun and laughs. The girls have really enjoyed her as well – especially as she’s happy to buy them chocolate or treats at the drop of a hat, not like their mean mum.

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Photos

Lost amongst the crowd
at Buckingham Palace

Harrods pet department
Dog Bed