Tour of London

Our flight was not till 21.05, so even though checkout time was a very civilized 12 noon, we still had a few hours to kill. We bought another day travelcard and headed via bus and underground back into London. We emerged at Hyde Park Corner and headed to Buckingham Palace, thinking we would take a tour. As we arrived at the main gates, some big event, we still have no idea what, had just finished and we had to fight our way through hundreds of people, very few of whom spoke English. (Sad to say Ann's starting to think of home - that sentence would never get past a peer reviewer!)

With the crowds of people around and the queue for the tours we realized we didn't have a hope of getting on one in time, so we hopped on the hop-on, hop-off bus. It took us around a lot of places we had walked before, but out in the open on top of a double-decker bus and with a live commentary we saw and heard things we hadn't before.


We drove over Tower Bridge, which is the one many people think is London Bridge. We drove over it too, but the current version is very boring.

And we also found that when we thought we were in London we were actually in Westminster. As many of you no doubt already know what is known as London is actually two cities.


Not the best of pics, but this arch spans the two cities. The ticket for the bus also included a cruise down the Thames. The weather was better than when we were in London 3 months ago, but there was still a downpour in the afternoon, fortunately while we were having lunch and, although outside, under cover.

We made it back to the hotel and onto a bus to Heathrow in good time. Unlike our experience of leaving Venice, where we found ourselves on a ferry heading off into parts unknown when we had limited time to catch a train! So we are shortly bound for Hong Kong, and although it looks like rain will be replaced by thunderstorms, the weather will certainly be warmer!


;-) Ann-a-Gram