On to London...

We arrived in London on the evening of September 11 and took a taxi to our hotel.  We had purposely booked a hotel close to the airport and to the "Tube" station which would be our primary mode of transportation to get into the city.
The next morning bright and early we were able to catch a bus from our hotel to the airport and a kind rider on the bus showed us where to get tickets for the train into the city.  We had booked Hop-On Hop Off tickets which had to be redeemed at particular station.  We were relieved to arrive at the right spot after a 30-40 ride with commuters into the city.

This beautiful park, St. James Park, was near our station and we enjoyed our walk through it from Buckingham Palace later in the day.

We passed this War Memorial and several others on our loops around the center of the city on the bus.

                            I believe this arch below was Wellington Arch across from Hyde Park.

                                         Below is Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square.

You can see the square and Big Ben in the distance.  With only 1 day to see London, we had to settle for a brief overview.  We didn't have time to go inside any of the famous buildings.

Here is Big Ben.  They are doing some maintenance and restoration work on it right now.

The Palace of Westminster is where the House of Lords and the House of Commons meets.

This photo shows the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Hall next to the Big Ben clock.

Here is our first glimpse of the Coca-Cola London Eye.  A famous place to get an amazing view of the city.  Some folks have even chosen to have their weddings while riding the London Eye.

                                        This photo was taken from the Westminster Bridge.

Here is a side view of the eye.  These other buildings have been repurposed to house Shrek's Adventure, Aquarium, etc.-family entertainment venues.

                                  Here is another view of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

This tudor style building survived many catastrophe's in the history of the city including WWII and is one of the oldest buildings in the area.

Here is the famous St. Paul's Cathedral where many weddings and funerals have been held for famous people including Winston Churchill.  It is still being used today for religious services.

                                  Here is the Tower of London, Edward's Formidable Fortress.

We were warned by our Hop on guide not to purchase food near the Tower of London as it was the most expensive fast food in the city.  Of course our schedule and our need to eat were just what the vendors hoped for, so we purchased a hot dog and found out later our guide was correct.

The next portion of our tour included a boat ride on the River Thames which we boarded near the Tower Bridge as seen below.  As it wasn't raining, we enjoyed our ride on the open boat and passing under the famous London Bridge.

This building is called the Shard.  You can purchase tickets to go up to an observation deck for a          wonderful view of London.

                                 You can see the dome of St. Pauls Cathedral in the background.

                       Steve is standing across the street from the building for Scotland Yard.

                                                  More photos of Westminster Abbey.

                                     These were the carriage houses for Buckingham Palace.

                               The grounds surrounding the palace are huge and well-protected.

Harrods is a very posh and famous department store in London.  We drove by but didn't have time to browse.

This double decker bus was taking tourists around the city and hosting a tea party at the same time.

This pub in the Kensington area of the city was covered in flowers.  It claimed that Winston Churchill often came here as a patron.  They have a large picture of him hanging on the corner of the building.

There are many famous museums in this part of the city.  The building were beautiful.

                                               This is the Notting Hill section of the city.

At this point we were getting tired of riding on the bus so we got off and walked around the Hyde Park and Green Park areas to come directly in front of Buckingham Palace.  They don't allow regular traffic to drive in front of the palace so it is best accessed by foot.

                                               Here we are in front of Buckingham Palace.

                               This is Queen Victoria's Memorial across the street from the Palace.

Then we walked across St. James Park to return to our train station.  Since it was rush hour, we chose to find a place to eat in the city.  We discovered that if you want to get authentic English fish and chips, you need to look for a pub.  We found one nearby that served the food upstairs with the drinks served on the main floor.  That worked fine for us.

We found out that the restrooms in the train station required payment and we didn't have any British pounds.  It was an emergency for me so...

Here is the restaurant/pub where we found our fish and chips.  The soup of the day was pea soup so I tried it.

            It was good to rest our feet and get some real food.  We enjoyed the refreshment.

Afterwards, we stopped at a nearby market to get a few items for breakfast in the morning.  Things are pricey in London.

Back on the train, subway, tube--whatever you want to call it and then the bus to reach our hotel.  It  was a fun day but a long one and we were ready to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning, September 13th, we took the bus to the airport again and this time picked up our rental car for the next five days.  Our plan was to visit Windsor Castle which is about 30-45 minutes out of the city and then drive to Cambridge to see McKay and Tricia's family and do some touring with them.

We are happy that we chose to see Windsor Castle instead of Buckingham Palace.  It is much older, built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror.  Of course, we only saw parts of the inside including an amazing doll museum but we wandered around the courtyard and watched the entire changing of the guard, which is actually long and gets a bit boring, but was wonderful to witness anyway.

Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.  It was the royal refuge during the bombings of London in WWII and survived a fire in 1992.

It is a venue used for hosting state visits and is the preferred weekend home of Elizabeth II.

We asked one of the attendants about the cars parked inside of the courtyard.  He said that certain retired military commanders are offered the opportunity to live in a few apartments on the grounds after their retirement until they die.  Several such retired military heroes are living there now.

The St. George's Chapel on the grounds of the Palace was amazing.  It was built in the 15th Century.  I am still looking for the photos we took of the inside.  This one is the exterior photo.

The town surrounding the castle was cute and geared to tourists of course.  The crowds gather for the changing of the guard because they march down the street and into the castle through the big gate shown above.  This takes place about three times a week depending somewhat on the weather.

The next couple of hours were nail biters for us as we drove to Cambridge.  It took a lot of concentration for Steve to drive on the left side of the road and it seemed like we negotiated a million roundabouts which took total focus for both of us. The British LOVE roundabouts instead of intersections.  Because we rented the car for several days, we were hopeful that this process will get easier.