This is going to be a long post as I am jamming all of London into one post, because of the lack of internet.
We have had an ongoing problem with early arrivals, by not being to check in to our rooms until twoish. Oddly, the only one we could check in before noon was the one where we wouldn’t arrive before 2.
We left our Paris hostel and walked down to the train station, about a mile, but at least it was all down hill. The train to London was about 2.5 hours, just long enough to be boring, but not enough time to sleep.
Since UK doesn’t use euros, we utilized the changer at King’s Cross (the Harry Potter station) to get pounds. With a fist full of new cash, we splurged on a taxi (£14) instead of the “tube” to get to our hostel.
We should have saved our money, 4 days in London cost over £700 (about $1100). Everything in London is expensive. The exchange rate is about £3 to $2, so you need to add 50% more to any price to determine equivalent pricing to US.
I had booked a 20-bed dorm, but we ended up having to use the top bunks of designed-for-children bunk beds and there were only four outlets, right next to each other. We went down and tried upgrading and managed to get a private 3-bed room to ourselves. Oddly, the beds were almost touching, side-by-side, going across one wall. They really should have put in a king size, instead of 3 singles. Unfortunately, that room was only available 1 night, so we had to transfer the next morning to a 4-bed dorm, we were the first in, so we snagged the bottom bunks. Woo Hoo!
The first day we went into the underground station, right on the corner, and the attendant at the ticket machine got us to buy an “Oyster Card” which is just a RFID card that allows you to bypass the ticket machines and pay ahead. I was skeptical, but I didn’t want to have to specify my destination for every ticket I bought.
The tickets were high almost £5, which is 3 times higher than Italy or Paris. I initially put £15 (plus £5 deposit) on each card and later another £10. After riding all over, dozens of trips, the final balance was still more than £6. That card was the only thing that saved us any money on this trip. I don’t understand the deposit, because we got that back and still have the cards.
We went out to London Bridge, rather a boring bridge now days, there isn’t anything on the bridge like it used to be. It used to be lined on each side with houses and shops, much like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
We crossed and then walked the wharf to the Tower Bridge. This is the bridge most people think of when they imagine the London Bridge. It has two towers that support the roadway and hold the machinery that raises the two middle spans, allowing tall ships to pass.
You can take a lift up to the top of one tower and cross over to the next, walking over a glass floor.
We had a quick lunch of fish and chips, then took a tour of the London Tower, a fort/castle and home of some of England’s kings and where some of those kings imprisoned some of the king’s enemies and critics.
There is also an exhibition of the crown jewels at the Tower. Unfortunately, most of the crowns had been scavenged by later kings to make new crowns for themselves, so many are just gold and fur, no gems. You would think they would at least fill them with fake stones.
The next day, we rode the London Eye, basically an enclosed ferris wheel, which is on the river bank of the Thames. Then walked across the Westminster bridge to the House of Commons, where the clock tower containing Big Ben, which is the large bell, not the tower.
Next door is Westminster Abbey, the place of many royal coronations and weddings. They wanted £20 to enter and wouldn’t allow any photos, so we skipped it. We wanted to head over to Buckingham Palace, but there was something going on and we couldn’t.
Our room is across the road from Hyde Park, a huge park with a large duck and swan pond, and the Diana Memorial Gardens.
On the other side of the park is a blue police box, the only Tardis in London. Nearby is the Natural History Museum. On room has over forty double sided cases with mineral and crystal samples, way more than anyone could take in. There was also a 5 pound natural quartz crystal “spear”, that was almost totally clear. There were so many beautiful colors of minerals, the whole rainbow must have been represented.
The mammal room had a full size model of a blue whale, a huge model, dwarfing the elephants and other models.
They had various extinct and near extinct stuffed animals, including a bunch neither of us has ever heard of.
There was a skeleton of a dodo bird, which is ironic as the nearby Oxford Museum had the last known full specimen but a clerk had thrown it out, believing it to be garbage.