London Touristy Sites

We started our day at Big Ben and the Parliament buildings, which we also took in the sights of Westminster Abby. I think we both expected Big Ben to be a little larger, but were nonetheless very impressed with the scale and detail of these buildings. Westminster Abbey was beautiful and the architecture was very impressive.

After putzing around this area, we moved on to the London Eye, which we were both very excited about. This is a large 'ferris wheel' with capsules that hold about 15-20 people. The capsules themselves are surrounded by glass to give you a 360 degree view of the bustling city. The capsules also slowly rotate to keep you evenly flat throughout the 'flight'. These go very slow as the 'flight' takes about 30 minutes to complete. We were lucky to have such a clear day and got some good photos and videos here.

Next we took the tube to the Tower of London this was a neat area as there was both the tower, as well as the tower bridge which we walked across to get to our hotel. We choose not to go into the tower, as it was pretty costly and there were loads of people. The tower bridge was interesting as it is commonly mistaken for the London Bridge.

After our adventures we stopped into the hotel for a little rest and relaxation. We headed to dinner at a neat little pub/restaurant. Brian had the homemade pie, and Dave opted for a chicken club sandwich. The pie was a great traditional UK meal, we'd highly recommend it!

That was our first full day in London. We look forward to what adventures lie ahead for tomorrow!

Cheers!

Brian and Dave

Traveling to London

As I write this we are traveling in the chunnel at over 100 miles per hour on the Eurostar. The train has been exciting aside from the difficult luggage problems that we had. But we are enjoying the ride. We’re glad we decided not to fly as that experience would have taken us much longer to complete and the Eurostar station is less than a mile from our hotel.

***

We arrived in London at about 1pm GMT, and checked into our hotel after having some Fish 'n' Chips. We are are staying at the London Bridge Hotel, which is located next to the London Bridge. Its very 'fanc' and about 100 yards from a tube station which will no doubt be very convenient for us.

We headed into the city last night and visited Leicester Square. It seems to be a happening place, with all kinds of shopping, restaurants and entertainment options. There are large video screens, much like Times Square. We had a terrific dinner at a local eatery and took in the sights of a carnavil. We took in a movie, Children of Men and check out the discount ticket booth (similiar to the one in Times Square in NYC). The movie was great, and the experience was interesting as you buy a movie ticket for a reserved seat here. There was also an usher that showed us to our seat after we arrived. It was a small theater, only about 50 seats - quite different from the megaplexes in the US.

That was about the extent of our travel day. We plan to hit some of the touristy sites tomorrow.

Cheers!

Dave and Brian