December
14th
We were planning
on traveling to Cardiff today. Unfortunately, all of the activity from the last
week wore us out, and we didn't want to get up as early as we needed to catch
the bus. Instead, we got up a couple of hours later, and took the Original
London Bus Tour.
This is
Marble Arch, where we started the bus tour. While we were waiting, we saw an
advert for Children of Men, which is set in London.
The
Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park was on the way. Not much to see on a weekday. We
took a lot of pictures as we traveled around on the bus.
When we
made it back to Westminster, there was another protest march. It was much
smaller than the earlier one and we couldn't tell what they were protesting. We
did get some good pictures of Westminster Abbey and the London Eye while we
were waiting. We saw Lambeth Palace when we crossed the bridge.
We had
lunch at The Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church and got back
on a bus to do more of the tour.
On the bus,
we got to travel across several bridges that we hadn't been on yet. When we
went across London Bridge, there was a huge advert for the song London Bridge
by Fergie. The London Dungeon was also decorated for Christmas.
The drive
across Tower Bridge was fabulous. We love the Tower and it was interesting to
see a different view of it.
We are
still fascinated that people live in the Tower still today. If you look down in
the moat, you can see a swing set.
And someone
hung out their laundry to dry.
This is All
Hallows by the Tower, the church where John Quincy Adams was married and
William Penn was baptized. Across from it is a memorial to WWI sailors.
We continued
on the bus tour until we got to the Embankment Pier. We went past Cleopatra's
Needle and saw Nelson's Column again in the distance.
As part of
the bus tour, we could take a boat ride down the Thames. While we were waiting,
we took some pictures of the river Thames and the London Eye.
We stopped
at the Tower of London (we got in on our Historic Royal Palaces card), where we
took the Yeoman Warder's tour. The Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula was
decorated with holly and candles for Christmas and was beautiful. The only way
you can see the chapel is by taking the Yeoman Warder tour.
We also
went through the Medieval Palace and saw the Tower ravens. The caretaker was
feeding one of them and every time he would talk to the raven, it answered him.
In the
evening we did our big grocery trip to Sainsbury's, and began packing for the
trip home.
