UK Trip Highlights -Part 1, London

OK, so finally, here it is! I am going to break this out by location. It is just highlights - and I will do my best to include links where appropriate.

If you haven't already - check out our trip pictures that were in my previous post. Also, check out Doug's blog for his review of our hotels.

The first leg of our trip we were in London. We were there for a little over 2 days, which obviously is not enough time. However, we did our best to squeeze in as much sightseeing as possible while still leaving room for many pub visits!
We were fortunate enough to get a suggested itinerary from a woman Doug works with who used to live in London. Since we didn't really have a chance to come up with our own plan, we thought it would be wise to follow hers. So, that is basically what we did.

On our first day, we walked to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the Guards. Now, I am sure all the stomping and arm swinging means something to someone, but after about 30 min straining to see it through a giant crowd, we had enough. The marching band was cool and we did see the Queen, which was very exciting! She drove right past us, but of course I didn't have my camera ready and have only a picture of the back of her car.

We then walked through St. James Park, which was beautiful! Then proceeded down to see Big Ben. We stopped for a tasty lunch at Walkers Wine and Ale. We had a few pints and some Cottage Pie for me and a sandwich and some crisps for Doug.

We then went for the audio tour of Westminster Abbey. It was really cool to see the old tombs and memorials. It was also very interesting to learn all of the famous people who are buried there. In additional to all the royalty, many famous authors, poets, and scientist are there as well; like Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. I would definitely recommend the audio tour, it makes for an easy flow to your tour.

We then walked for like 400 miles back to our hotel, where we wised up and took a taxi to Soho for our evening festivities. We went to a few local bars, walked around some "red light" type establishments and found some dinner at Totenham's (couldn't' find a link, but it wasn't really link-worthy anyway). We went on the Underground back to the hotel.

The next day, we took the tube to London Tower and spend most of the morning there. We saw the crown jewels and learned all the interesting history (and torture) that went on there. We then walked across the Tower Bridge, which is getting a new paint job! We were lucky to have really lovely weather for the most part, so walking all over the city was quite pleasant. We stopped at Pret a Manger (which we now have in NYC!) for a sandwich and continued on walking through the Southwark area and over to Borough Market. As tasty as my sandwich at Pret was, it was unfortunate because there was so many yummy looking things at the market. Nevertheless, it was lovely to walk through and see all the interesting veggies and food and such. We kept on walking and went past Shakespeare's Globe and then went to the Tate Modern. That is an awesome museum, I know everyone knows that. But, now I can say it, too! We pretty much ran through there and walked over the river on the Millennium pedestrian bridge and took the tube back to the hotel. Our hotel was in a Middle-Eastern type neighborhood, so we wanted to take advantage and eat near there. So, we had dinner at a Lebanese place called Maroush. Now that I look it up online, it appears to be a chain, but it was pretty good. I got some type of lamb something or other that Doug made me feel bad about every time we went by a sheep on the train to Scotland (which, there are quite a few of on the way!).

The next day we were heading to Edinburgh. We took a taxi to Kings Cross station to get the train. While at Kings Cross, I had to go on the hunt for Platform 9 3/4. And, to my surprise, they had one! Of course it wasn't like it was in the movie, but I was still excited. I even had a woman take my picture there and then say I was a "silly grown woman". Well, perhaps she had a point, but still...

We did get on our train and make it to Edinburgh. The train was a little less posh than it was in my head, as most things sadly are. It took a long time and smelled a little bad, but the scenery was breathtaking! And, lots of sheep!

I will hopefully post our Edinburgh adventures shortly.