Well we're back from an absolutely amazing time in the U.K. Mike and I are both so sad that it's over. We made many memories, celebrated our seventh year of marriage and just had an amazing life experience that we will never forget. As an American, the oldest place I've ever been were the buildings in Washington D.C., and while D.C. is a cool place it does not even compare to the standing in a courtyard that has existed for 1,000 years. Mike and I were in absolute awe our entire trip. Now that we're home and back to our "normal" lives, it's hard to believe we were really in England. Did the past two weeks really happen?
I'm going to split our time in the U.K. into several blogs just so it's easier to collect my thoughts. I hope you enjoy reading about our time in the U.K. and journeying with us through the pictures I will post.
Part One:
After dropping our dogs off at my brother's in Seattle we left very early the next morning for the airport. We had a relatively short flight to Chicago and then it was on a huge plane to London! Our flight was an overnight flight so we thought we'd definitely get some sleep. Oh boy were we wrong. We ended up watching a couple movies and were absolutely wrecked by the time we got to London.
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| Arrival in London. It's about 0200 Seattle time and I'm exhausted! |
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| On the bus from Heathrow to Victoria Coach Station and our hotel |
When researching hotels before our trip Mike and I decided that it'd definitely be worth the extra money to pay for an en-suite bathroom rather than sharing with multiple strangers. Our hotel room was small but definitely worth the money we paid (about $200 USD/night) considering London is one of the most expensive cities in the world!
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| En-suite bathroom in our hotel room |
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| Our tiny but comfortable hotel room (two twin beds pushed together) at the Luna Simone Hotel in Victoria | | |
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| View from our hotel room |
Our original plan was to check into our hotel and then do some sight seeing since we landed at LHR at 0930. Yeah....that didn't work. We were SO exhausted that we ended up showering and then sleeping for about three hours, waking up around 5pm. We got dressed and walked around Victoria for a little while in search of food and drink. We ended up eating at Victoria Station at a restaurant called Garfunkel's--basically a Denny's and stopped by a pastry shop on the way back to the hotel. We managed to stay awake until 10:30 that night in hopes that we'd sleep through the night. We were up at 0230 and counted down the hours until we could go downstairs at 0730 for breakfast! We were the first ones there and pretty soon some other people began coming in. Before long we were like the tattooed red-headed step children in a room full of senior citizens. Lots of stares--ha!
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| Raspberry Tart! Delicious! |
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| I had my first bite of meat in over a year because I was curious to try the English bacon at breakfast! |
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After breakfast we decided to head out to start our sightseeing. We were so tired but we only had three days in London and a TON to see! First stop was The Tower of London.
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| Outside our hotel |
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| Mike at Traitor's Gate--the gate where Anne Boleyn arrived at the Tower |
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| White Tower | | | |
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| One of Her Majesty's Guards--in place to guard the Crown Jewels |
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| Monument where the scaffold and the infamous chopping block used to be. |
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| There is an urban legend that says England will be safe as long as there are ravens at The Tower. |
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| Stairs inside Beachamp (prounounced Bee-chum) Tower |
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"Graffiti" inside Beauchamp Tower. Could you imagine carving this by hand? |
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| Me and a Beefeater |
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| Ruins from The Roman City Wall--built in the 2nd or 3rd century. Amazing. |
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| Henry VIII Armor |
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| The infamous chopping block |
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Seeing the Tower of London smack in the middle of modern day London was pretty trippy. I kept commenting on it over and over. It really did look so out of place! Here's a picture to kind of put it into perspective.
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| The years 1280 and 2011 in one picture |
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After we left the Tower of London we walked around Tower Bridge. One of the first things Mike said was, "Peter Pan was here." I love him.
We found an awesome little pub for lunch called The Hung Drawn and Quartered. Now if you don't know what that is here is a little tidbit for you:
"Convicts were fastened to a
hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were
hanged (almost to the point of death),
emasculated,
disembowelled,
beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as
London Bridge." What a great name for a pub, right?! :)
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| Mike was so happy to finally be in a pub |
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| I was SO excited to see vegetarian Bangers and Mash on the menu! |
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After lunch we walked down the Thames to Big Ben, Parliament and the London Eye. What an awesome sight! Tons of people from all walks of life, street performers and just wonderful to experience!
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| Love. | | |
We decided to hop on one of those super-touristy double decker buses for a cruise around London Town. It's an easy way to see all the big sights without having to do a ton of walking. In our case, it was kind of a big waste of money because we literally dozed off every time the bus stopped for more than a few minutes (thank you jetlag!) and we ended up seeing most of those sights on a later day. Needless to say, we don't remember much of it but it was another thing checked off our bucket list.
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| On top of the double decker bus--it was freezing! |
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| Crossing Tower Bridge |
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| Steeple of All Hallows |
After the bus tour we grabbed dinner before we did the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour, which was one of the things Mike wanted to do. It was pretty cool! Our guide was an off-duty Beefeater and he took us through Whitechapel, the place where Jack the Ripper's victims lived and were killed. It was a little difficult to imagine the destitute of this part of London as it was in 1886 but our guide did a great job putting it into perspective. All four of Jack the Ripper's victims were prostitutes and could not even afford a "bed" in a doss house that cost a mere four pence. They were turned away at the door and forced out onto the streets where they met their fate. The cases of Jack the Ripper are still unsolved--they never figured out who he was.
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| Dinner-- real pizza! Yum! |
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| On the Jack the Ripper Walk our guide pointed out a little alley that was the location used for Diagon Alley in some of the Harry Potter films. <3 |
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| Pet Shop Boys fans should recognize this place from the West End Girls video |
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| Our last stop on the walking tour--Jack the Ripper's final victim was killed here | | |
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| Belgrave Road (location of our hotel) at night. End of day 1. |
