My Favorite Moments

Thinking back on my trip, I have come up with my 5 favorite moments:
1) Sitting atop the doomed bus in Paris, having that moment of realization that "Holy cow! I'm in Paris!" I think Paris was one of the first places that I wanted to visit that was not in the US. For this of you who don't know, our whirlwind day in Paris did not exactly live up to our hopes and dreams. Due to a combination of crazy Paris traffic and quite possibly inept bus drivers, it took us 3 hours to go from the train station to the Eiffel Tower. Keep in mind, we had a very limited amount of time in Paris (approximately 11 hours from arrival to departure). By the time we made it to the Eiffel Tower, got through line to get tickets and get on the elevator to the second level, spent some time up there and then boarding a second elevator to take us to the very top, and spending some time up there (still all the while thinking "Holy cow! I'm in Paris!"), stopping by the post office to mail some postcards (where a very kind woman offered me sunscreen when she saw my terribly sunburned face. I kindly declined as I had bought some myself the day before after the fact), it was approximately 4pm and or train was scheduled to leave Paris around 9pm. We decided since it took us three hours to get there, we would be wise to head toward the train station as we certainly didn't want to be stuck in Paris for the night. All in all, Paris was okay. Not what we had hoped for but hey, not everyone can say they have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower but I can! (Oh and when we got back to the train station, we found this little cafe where I successfully ordered our snacks in French, thanks to middle school and high school French class).
4) Westminster Abbey. Breathtaking church!
3) St. Paul's Cathedral. Honestly, I expected to like Westminster Abbey more. And while that church was certainly beautiful, St. Paul's was stunning. One of the things I really liked about the churches (aside from the long histories of both of them) is that they are active places of worship and both of them hold regular services. (thus, no photography allowed meaning no pictures. Google them both if you want to see pictures although I am sure they won't do either church justice). Even in the midst of all the tourists that visit on a daily basis (except Sunday when they have services and are not open for tours, but you can attend services at each of them) they have a time of prayer every hour. Amazing! I think that the next time I am able to visit London, I will make plans to attend services at one of these churches.
2) Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. Talk about something that has stood the test of time. It is the ceremonial locking up of the Tower (where by the way, the Crown Jewels are kept) that has been done every single night at the same time for over 700 years. Talk about commitment to tradition. It was very intriguing. It is open to the public, is free but you must have a ticket which you must request in advance in writing. Very simple thing to do but you do have to plan in advance (I think I got our tickets all the way back in February). It was really just a very interesting thing to see. Once again, there is no photography allowed. I'd you are interested in seeing a video of it, I came across it in the first episode of a documentary series titled The Tower. I found it on Netflix and it is available for streaming. Just invade you are interested in it.
1) My absolute favorite!!! And while it may sound cliché, I LOVED the Changing of the Queens Guard at Buckingham Palace. We were actually there twice. The first day we got there kinda late and I was able to see NOTHING! It was amusing though. We were all packed in like sardines. We decided to go back, much earlier this time, the very next day. We got there 1 1/2 hours before it started and were rewarded with front row seats, hands on the fence. I don't know what it was about it but I really did LOVE it! I will eventually get around to posting some video from it.

So there you have it, my favorite parts of my trip. I cannot wait to go back! It will probably be awhile before I do, but when I do, I have a fabulous travel mate lined up and I can't wait to share these fantastic experiences with her!

One of these days, I really hope to put together a montage video of all my pictures from the trip (like I did when I went to Ireland) and post it here. Might be a little while before I get that done though.

Front Row Seat

Well, we hade to make a second attempt of seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace as the first attempt, I saw nothing. So we headed out early and got front row viewing. We waited for nearly 2 hours but it was worth it. After the changing, we headed toward St James Palace to try and get up close and personal witha guard but it was not to be. There is only a guard there when royalty is at the palace and apparently they were out as there was no one there. Then we headed for the London Eye for a Birdseye view. Again, a long wait but an amazing view. We are heard home today and will be leaving for the airport shortly but I wanted to share a Agee pics before we headed out.

Rubbing Elbows With the Famous

We headed out yesterday morning for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I will let the pictures do the talking. With a little Paddington Bear in there too. Last night we headed back to the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys. Look it up sometime it is quite interesting (no photography allowed so therefore, no pictures). I will write more about it later as we are headed out this morning to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

6.9 km in 3 hrs

I won't say a lot today since we want to get started on our day today. But we spent the day in Paris yesterday. To say it was less than perfect is putting it lightly. It was beautiful and we were in Paris, but, it took us 3 hours to get from the train station in Paris to the Eiffel Tower. That's a distance of 6.9 km (for those Americans that's about 14 miles approximately) in that amount of time. Let's put that in perspective, we went from London to Paris in approximately 2 hrs and 15 minutes and that's 279 miles approximately. That gives you an idea of our day. So with that I will share our pictures.

I Shoulda Thought Bout That

Well, we started the day off with a cruise down the River Thames. It was a beautiful day. Sun was shining with hardly a cloud in the sky. Yesterday I forgot my sweater and was chilled all day long. Today I brought my sweater and never put it on. We took the boat from Westminster Pier (near Big Ben and Parliament) down to the Tower of London. We decided since we were there we would go into the tower. We were treated with a tour led by one of the Beefeaters. After the tour where we heard all about the bloody gruesome history of the city of London, we checked out the Crown Jewels. Now that's some bling (no pictures as they weren't allowed in there and I didn't want them to behead me if I snuck some). While we were on the tour we were standing there in the sun and I thought, "why didn't I bring sunscreen?" (I now have a bottle to try to stave off further burn). Springtime in London, that's not what you really think about. I was more concerned about rain while here. We haven't seen a drop of it since we arrived. Although they are saying it may be slightly warmer tomorrow setting it up for intense thunderstorms. Good thing we will be elsewhere tomorrow (Paris here we come!). After we left the Tower, we decided to head for St. Paul's Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married). It was a beautiful church!!! Again, no pictures allowed. Bummer cause I wanted to take some real bad. We are in for the night. Waiting for laundry to finish and headed to bed early tonight as we have to leave for the train station around 6:15 in the morning. So I leave you with pictures of a blue skied London.

London By Bus

Not a whole lot to share today in the way of words but lots of pictures. I will leave you with these favorites of mine for tonight. It's late, and we are headed out earlier tomorrow than we were today.