Rhonda: We had another excellent weekend in Europe. We traveled to London to see as much as possible in two days! We flew out late on Friday evening using a budget airline company called RyanAir. It was located at a small airport called Göteborg City Airport in Säve only 17 kilometers from Gothenburg. It is cheap to fly with RyanAir, but they do charge for everything little thing. They charge extra to check in at the airport and for each bag you check. They actually would prefer that you only carry on one bag and check in on-line. Since we are non-Europeans, we were required to pay extra and check in at the airport. With all of their restrictions, it’s more difficult to travel with them, but still worth it because it’s so cheap.

Chad: Our flight took us to Stansted airport which is 30 miles outside of London. We were able to purchase Stansted express train tickets on the flight, so once we arrived, we were able to walk directly the train station (which seemed like a mile) to board our train. The train took 45 minutes and dropped us off in the center of London at the Liverpool station around 11:15PM.

Once at Liverpool station, we made our way to the Red Line underground route for about a 20 minute subway ride to Queenstown station which is right beside our hotel. The subways are excellent and extremely easy to navigate compared to New York City. They do get full sometimes, but it is extremely easy to figure out where to go and they have signs everywhere telling you how to get there. Plus it was all in English! We have not been around English speaking people in 6 weeks now, so it was a welcome treat to be able to understand everything people were saying.

Our hotel was next to the Hyde Park and was very nice, however quite old. When we arrived, they offered us a late light dinner which we had in our room. After our late dinner, we made preparations for our first tour of London leaving at 7:25 AM!

Saturday morning we awoke early, got ready, had a wonderful breakfast, and made our way to the downstairs office where we were picked up on time. Along the way our driver informed us the difference between riding on a bus and a coach and the difference being that coaches are driven by English gentlemen! I don’t know how they do it, but they drive these huge coaches down the smallest most congested roads I have ever seen. It’s amazing and I’m never going to drive in London. We learned it costs 8 pounds per day to drive in the city and parking is so scarce in some areas, it costs 4 pounds to park for 10 minutes. Anyways, if you are in London, use the trains and subways. You can learn them quickly and they are easy to use.

From our “coach” pickup we made our way to a central coach station where all the thousands of tourists are dumped off and put into a sort of gate situation where you go to a gate for a particular tour. We found ours, bought a diet coke, and waited until our tour was called.

Rhonda: Our tour for Saturday was a full day “Total London” group tour with a company called “Premium Tours”. We started the tour off by visiting the Tower of London. The Tower of London has its very own tour guides. They are called Yeomen Warders, also known as the beefeaters. They are responsible for guarding the tower, and today also act as tour guides! I learned that they actually live in the tower somewhere. The Tower of London was built to be used as a residence for the Kings of London and it was also used as a prison. So, its purpose was to protect the King and protect the King from his enemies! I guess the best way to know what your enemy is doing is to keep them near you.

After seeing the Tower of London, we took a cruise down the Thames River! What a great time! Our guide on the boat was the highlight. He made it very entertaining with all his British humor! Along the way, we actually got to see the famous Tower Bridge open (which is a rare occasion) for a very old ship that use to transport goods on the Thames River.

Our cruise went from the Tower Bridge down to the Westminster Bridge. We got an excellent view of the city from the boat. On the tour, I learned that London is actually made up of two cities, one being the City of London which is the financial center, and the other being the City of Westminster, the center of government. Also, we learned that the Millennium Bridge was known as the “Wobbly Bridge” because on the first day that it opened, so many Londoners wanted to cross it; it bounced due to the ton of people! On the first day, they had to shut it down for structure enhancements.

Our next main stop was the Buckingham Palace which was built for the Duke of Buckingham, but is now a royal residence for the Queen of London. Many royal celebrations and banquets are held there. It was a beautiful place! All of the iron gates were of gold leaf made to last a very long time and in front center was an incredible gold statue of Queen Victoria!

Lunch was held at an English pub called Whitehall which was near Trafalgar Square. During lunch, we had a very nice chat with a couple from St. Louis, Missouri. Like us, they were there of course visiting London, but had plans to see Paris as well. I believe their names were Julie and John. Like my parents, they love the game of golf. John was the general manager for a golf resort just outside of St. Louis!

That afternoon, we got to see St. Paul’s Cathedral! It was my favorite site of the day. We had our own personal tour guide that gave us a lot of insight. We found out that there had been many churches that stood on this location, but the current St. Paul’s was designed by Christopher Wren, who took on the task to build a new Church after the Great Fire of London destroyed the old St. Paul’s in 1666. Wren wanted the Cathedral to be in a shape of a cross and contain a huge dome. However, his designed was not approved to include the dome due to it being a radical design and would cost too much, so the Church would have spire instead. Wren, being very clever, wrote in tiny print in the contract with the King that architecture/structural changes of the design could be performed. So in spite of it all, Wren got the design he wanted! It did, however, cost way too much money to build and money had to be taken from Westminster Abbey which is a Church dedicated to St. Peter in order to complete it. This incident was where the old phrase “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” came from. Chad had heard of this phrase, but it was new to me!

The main section of the Church is directly under the Dome. The Church contains actually 2 domes, an interior dome inside the Church and the other being the external dome that sits on top of the interior dome. Before we left the Church, we were able to climb 259 steps to a gallery called the Whispering Gallery which is a walkway surrounding the interior dome. Supposable, you can whisper at any point against its wall in the dome and someone on the opposite side with their ear held to the wall can hear the whisper. Chad and I tried this, but it was unsuccessful. Chad learned though later that we should have been whispering a little higher on the wall.

Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take pictures inside St. Paul’s, but we did take a few from the outside!

Our last sightseeing event on Saturday was a ride on the London Eye. The London Eye was build by British Airways, and on the first day of opening, it broke! To satisfy all of the special guests that came for the first ride, they were given a free round trip flight anywhere in the world for all of their trouble. I think I would have been satisfied with that compromise! The ride itself was neat and we had an awesome view on top! The only downside of riding the London Eye was that we had to wait in a long line for an hour and a half.

That evening, I was able to talk Chad into going out to dinner and then to a show. We had dinner at Ruby Blue bar/restaurant which was next to Leicester Square and then went to see a play called Mousetrap at St. Martin’s Theater! What a great way to end our first full day in London!

On Sunday, we took a tour with “Photo Walks of London”. If you are into photography with lots of equipment or you just want to take a bunch of great pictures with any point and shoot camera, this is the tour for you. We basically had a private tour by two Londoners (Ian and Bill) for a full day, since no one else had signed up! I think I enjoyed it more than the tour we took on Saturday. The reason being, we could ask as many questions as we wanted, and they lead Chad to some great spots in London to get the perfect shot! We walked all over the city. I bet we walked about 10 miles or so. We started at 9:45 AM and we ended the tour at 5:30 PM. I don’t think I have ever walked so much in one day. But truthfully, walking is absolutely the best way to see London.

The tour began by seeing the “Changing of the Guards”. There are British soldiers who guard Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace which is a royal residence as well. The soldiers also perform other duties besides guarding royal residences. The “Changing of the Guards” process involves new guards exchanging duty with the old guards. This occurs every other day and during this exchange, a historical ceremony is performed. The handover is accompanied by a marching band. It is quite impressive and attracts thousands of people.

Chad: From there, we started walking to Buckingham Palace and took a few pictures of the flowers along the way.

Once at the palace, we braved some light rain and took shots of the band entering the palace. There were thousands of people everywhere trying to get a good look. Ian and Bill placed us in some good locations to catch some great shots.

From the palace we went to the Trafalgar Square. It is located near the center of London and has many events going on all the time. It is a popular site for political demonstrations and is the site of Nelson’s Column.

Rhonda: We had lunch at Blackfriars pub. The outside of the pub doesn’t look very appealing, it was a triangular shaped building, but the inside of the building is a work of art. The walls are out of marble and there are detailed wood carvings absolutely everywhere you look. If your ever in London, you must make a visit to this pub! The area of Blackfriars in London was originally a monastery and the pub where we had lunch was built near the site of the monastery.

In the afternoon, we explored the South Bank of London. We walked along the river starting from the Waterloo Bridge down to London Bridge. Chad was able to capture some of London’s classic views of the city.

We ended the tour on Sunday at 5:30 PM only because we couldn’t walk any further! Our feet and legs were starting to hurt. I was actually getting sharp pains in the middle of my right foot! (very strange…because this has never happened to me before!)

Before our trip back to Stansted airport, we had to go back to our hotel to get our luggage. We asked them to store it for the day. So, we took the subway back and decided just to have dinner there at the hotel. We had Chicken Tikka Marsala with Rice. It was an excellent meal if you like spicy foods.

Our flight back to Gothenburg was at 7:00 AM on Monday. Therefore, we had booked a hotel for Sunday night only 10 minutes away from the Stansted airport, so that we would not have to wake up at 3AM in the center of London. So, instead we woke up at 4:15 because Chad wanted to get there early!

Chad: (Be aware we only had 15 minutes of time to rest before we boarded the plane. If we had left 20 minutes later, we probably would not have made it to the aircraft on time.)

It was a great trip and we definitely can recommend it if you get the opportunity to go.

Check out the three galleries below to view all of our pictures from London! Also, by “hovering” over the image in the gallery with your mouse, you will see a description of the photo.

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