Tuesday, October 11th
We did pretty well at our airport hotel as we were out the door only 20 minutes after our goal of 9am. The success of the day took a 6 hour break at that point. We started the transition to our Central London hotel with an almost 1-mile walk to the train station. Lugging all our stuff and tired girls that 1-mile set the tone for the rest of the day—4 tired, hungry and worn out travelers in need of rest. Unfortunately, this was 1 of our 2 days to see as much of London as possible and we would need to find a way to rally.
Making that task tougher was the fact that it seemed we had some lessons to learn during our time in London. These lessons made our 2 days in London the most mentally challenging of the trip. When we had chosen London as our final destination, I (Kelsy) felt like we needed to have a plan, so I did some research and we purchased a 2 day city pass. It seemed like a great idea…a way to get the most out of our time in London (admission to all the top attractions with 1 pass). That was definitely a mistake on my part. Thankfully, we were able to laugh a little bit about the giant waste of money the City Pass turned out to be and move on without dwelling on the decision too much. We should have known that sight-seeing isn’t our natural tourist style. Once we let go of trying to use the pass and be tourists, we took a breath and were able to enjoy many of the amazing, exciting scenes London has to offer.
The London Pass frustration boiled towards its peak as we wandered Trafalgar Square looking for the place to pick up our “dream” passes. Luckily this wandering did allow us to see an amazing part of London and a few street performers. We managed to finally get on our hop-on-hop off bus tour around rush hour and I think the same person walked along side our bus the entire hour we traveled towards the Tower of London. We arrived 5 minutes late to get to go inside, but the magnitude of this castle was enough of an impressive sight from the outside for Robert to declare that he has a new fascination and appreciation for large castles.
After a boat ride up the Thames River, we found a great little dive restaurant for fish and chips-and yes I (Kelsy) had the fish! We only found this place after our first choice place from our discount dining guide book was out of business-talk about adding insult to injury on the London Pass purchase. By then the troops had definitely rallied and we had managed to salvage the day and have a great time. We capped it off with a walk to Big Ben. Here I determined that my new favorite structures are clock towers and Big Ben at night may be my favorite of all of them.
Family walk to the train station
Surprising how many telephone booths are still in London
Cute girls!
Cute girls take two!
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