England - London
Posted on Aug 26, 2005
On the first day we arrived at in downtown London at Victoria Station around 5 AM, and decided to wander about and find some of the major nearby sites. These included Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, St Margaret's Church, The Parliament Buildings and Big Ben, The Eye, St Jame's Park, The Horse Guard Museum (including seeing the changing of the guard), Buckingham Palace and Harrod's (a bizarre department store of massive scale).
Day 2 we visited the British Museum (incl. the Rosetta Stone and several other ancient artifacts), caught lunch and street performances near Covent Gardens. Walked through The Temple, Trafalgar Square, and visited the National Gallery (incl. works by Monet, Pissaro, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo). On the way home we walked through Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. The third day we took a boat down the Thames to Greenwich and visited the Cutty Sark, The Old Naval College (incl. the impressive Painted House), The Queen's House, and (the real purpose of our trip there) The Royal Observatory / The Prime Meridian. We had a traditional English lunch near the Greenwich Market and then ice cream on the Pier while we waited for our return boat to appear. That night we found a local pub to relax in, have a pint, and even have a game of pool - though none of the locals were man enough to challenge me to a game. We saw The Tempest at a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which despite the uncomfortable seating, was excellent! We toured St. Paul's Cathedral (excellent view), and the Tower of London. We enjoyed shopping on Oxford st, eating at various restaurants, and especially having lunch in Covent Garden Market while taking in street performances. We also visited the London Aquarium, which was good, despite Nicole's report that it wasn't as good as the one in New Orleans. We rounded out our week in London with return visits (ie actually going in) to all those big name buildings we saw on our first day, including obvious favorites Westminster Abbey and The Parliament buildings. blog comments powered by Disqus |
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