Where to next? Well London of course! Every good trip of Europe needs to include the capital of England, and our family trip was no exception. London is regarded as one of the greatest cities in the world, and I'm not sure if I can argue against that.
My cold finally went away for good while I was in London! I still felt a little sick on the first day, but I felt much better than I did in Scotland. By the last day in London I was back to feeling 100%.
Monday (8/17/2015) was our travel day down to London. We had a 9:40 train out of Glasgow, so we didn’t have to rush out of the apartment. It was nice to be able to take a little bit of time. We took a taxi to the train station and had time to stop and get breakfast before boarding.
Our train tickets to London we had purchased ahead of time on sale for only 15 pounds apiece. The normal price was over four times the amount, so we were pretty excited with our purchase. The only negative is that the seats weren’t all next to each other. That was fine though. I got time to attempt to catch up on the blog and to read my book. Overall the trip was rather uneventful.
We got to London Euston Station around 2:30 and got in a taxi to head to our rented AirBnB apartment. However, our trip to the apartment took much longer than we were expecting. We told the taxi driver we needed to go to "8 Queensdown Road", but he heard it as "8 Queenstown Road". It turns out that Queenstown Road was in the exact opposite direction that we needed to go. We ended up driving across nearly the entire city of London to get to where we needed to go. Our total taxi ride was over 90 minutes. Luckily the driver did not charge us for the entire journey. The meter kept running, but he only charged for what the actual total would have been directly from the station.
We arrived at the apartment around 4PM. The apartment was in the London borough of Hackney, which I was not too excited about. As recently as 10 years ago Hackney was listed as the most dangerous neighborhood in London. It also is located pretty far form the city center away from the underground (the subway). To get into the city we either needed to take a local bus or the above ground commuter rail. The neighborhood itself was slightly better than I was expecting, but I wouldn't call it nice. It looks like it's in the very beginning stages of gentrification and become a more "hipster" neighborhood. Maybe in 10 years it'll be a nicer place to visit.
The apartment itself was very interesting. It's one of those places that looks nice at first glance, but once you look closer you can see a lot of flaws. The apartment had a patio and garden area that was perfectly manicured. It also had a lot of glass windows that made it seem really open in the living room. However, my bedroom door was made almost completely of glass pains. And the bathroom door had a large glass window with a shade that did not block the view completely. It seemed very impractical to have glass doors. In addition, there was a lot of "interesting" artwork. The apartment was owned by a gay couple and their choice in artwork was much different than mine. There were a lot of paintings and photographs of naked men everywhere throughout the unit. At least one piece of art in every room. It didn't bother me too much, but it's not something that I wanted to look at all the time.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the apartment and in the area getting settled. Lauren had a phone interview for a job at 8PM local time, so we didn't want to trek all the way into the city again. We took a short walk around Hackney and saw some of the neighborhood. We also got drinks and food at a bar down the street. The bar was really neat. It seemed very hipster. We were able to get happy hour drink deals and 2-for-1 burger specials for dinner. Once back at the apartment we sat out in the garden for a little while before going to bed.
Sadly I don't have any photos from Monday! What a shame!
Tuesday (8/18/2015) was our first of three full days in London. We woke up pretty early and took the commuter rail to the underground into the city. Our first stop of the day was the Tower of London!
Outside the walls of the Tower of London! So I had done very little research on London and I actually had no idea what the Tower of London was. I thought it was like and old prison or something. The first thing I said when we got here was "where is the tower?"
Turns out it's and old castle! Here's the entrance.
Outside of the White Tower. We also saw the crown jewels, but those couldn't be photographed.
Hall of old armor.
It's one of those British guards who can't smile or react! I really wanted to run up and try to pose with him.
Proof that I was actually there!
Overall I was actually a little disappointed with the Tower of London. I don't know what I was expecting, but it seemed a little like a hodgepodge of historical information that occurred at the castle over time. And the 25 pound per person admission fee was a little steep. I probably would have liked it better if I had known more about it before arriving, but ah well.
After the Tower of London we had a quick lunch from a sandwich stand nearby. It was unmemorable. The tables we sat at were right on the river though overlooking the Tower Bridge.
View of the bridge from inside the Tower of London
Tower Bridge!
Lauren and John with the bridge.
Lauren and I with the bridge.
And now just me with the bridge.
Our net activity for the day was a double-decker bus tour of the city. We had two day passes to use the buses as much as we wanted which made it a pretty easy way to get around the city and see some sights. We took it from the Tower of London to Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey.
Remnants from the Olympic Days. And think, we could have looked forward to seeing these in Boston!
View of the River Thames and the Shard.
Traditional residential buildings in Southwark.
London Eye!
Big Ben and the House of Parliament.
Now we know where to look to check the time!
Who isn't excited when they're next to a world landmark?
We got off the bus at Parliament Square and walked around a little bit. We then decided that now would be a good time to tour Westminster Abbey! Again, I knew very little about Westminster Abbey before going in. I just thought it was a famous church. I was pleasantly surprised by how much there was to see inside! We spent nearly two hours touring the abbey. I liked seeing all of the final resting places for the kings and queens.
Hello? Can I help you? - Taking this photo was actually not very enjoyable because the inside smelled a lot like urine.
The side of Westminster Abbey.
Mom and Big Bend.
Outside of the Abbey! Sadly no photographs were allowed inside.
Can there be a better photo that defines London?
After touring the Abbey we headed over to Trafalgar Square to look around. We stopped at the stereotypical souvenir shops and bought some stereotypical souvenirs. It's funny how the inside of the gift shops look very similar to those in Delft or Munich or Edinburgh or Portland, Maine. It's universal that tourists want to buy shot glasses and fridge magnets.
Outside of Downing Street. The Prime Minister lives down there! Unfortunately he forgot to come let us in.
Lets proudly fly that Union Jack!
Trafalgar Square. I liked this square, it seemed very lively and exciting.
Lion statue in Trafalgar Square.
A shop just selling hats! How British!
Our walk after Trafalgar Square took us up to Covent Gardens. This is the marketplace in Covent Gardens.
We took our time walking up from Trafalgar Square to Covent Gardens. I really liked this neighborhood. It seemed very lively with restaurants and bars. In my opinion this seemed like the heart of the city and a place I would want to come to a lot if I lived in London.
Covent Gardens is also where a lot of London's theaters are, and that's why we were there! We had purchased tickets to have dinner at a restaurant in the neighborhood and then to see the Woman in Black. Dinner was at a French restaurant right around the corner from the theater. I got the salmon and it was really good!
After dinner we walked over to the theater. Our seats were up in the balcony, which Lauren didn't love, but it was alright. The show itself was really good! It was a suspenseful horror/mystery play which was an interesting genre for a play. What was really good is that the whole show was done with only two actors. I was a little nervous that they wouldn't be able to pull it off, but they did! Both of my parents agreed it was better than the local theater in South Portland.
Outside of the theater. At intermission we all bought cups of ice cream! Apparently that's a thing at theaters in London.
We got out of the play around 10PM and started to head back to Hackney. This time we took the city bus all the way back, which took about 45 minutes. Mom and I made friends with a drunk couple sitting across from us. They were pretty hilarious.
And with that Day 1 in London came to an end!
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