London Day Tour

Friday, March 14th, 2014

London, the Eye, Westminster and St Paul's

We got up early today and set off from Great Missenden by train to London. I have not been to London since 1979 and John thought it would be good to see some of the sights. So we took the tube to Waterloo Station. Our first stop was to the Eye. This is the huge Ferris wheel built for the millennium. It moves very slowly and continually loads up to 30 people in each pod. It takes about a half hour to go around once before you get off. The view of the city and the Parliament Buildings and Big Ben is spectacular and luckily, we again had a beautiful sunny day. While we were at the top John wanted to get a picture of the two of us with the view, so he handed his camera to a man sitting nearby. As he asked for his assistance, John suddenly realized that the man had a white cane! “I am not much good at taking photos, I'm better at dentistry”! His wife said, “And he's pretty good at face painting.” To which I replied, “If I have my choice I'd prefer face painting!”

After we disembarked we walked across the bridge towards the Parliament Buildings enjoying the river views. We wandered around that area before going to Westminster Abbey. There was a line up and a steep entrance fee, but I wanted to go in as it had been years. The Abbey is filled with all things of English history. It is the tomb of most of the Kings and Queens, poets, composers, politicians, and entertainers (David Frost was a new member). I could have spent hours in there just wandering around reading all the plaques but we had other places to go.

We walked from there through St. James’s Park to Buckingham Palace. The trees were flowering and there were lots of water birds in the ponds including a great blue heron. We had a look around the outside of the palace and the park, before walking along the Mall and the Victoria Embankment to St Paul's. We had lunch somewhere along the way and sat on the grass enjoying the weather. We spent a long time wandering around the main floor before climbing the stairs for a view from the roof.  From there we could see the walking bridge that had to be reinforced because it swayed too much and many of the famous London skyscrapers.

Then it was time to get back to Dottie's for dinner with her mom. We arrived at the tube station and took it back to where we had to catch the train. John regaled me with a story about getting on the wrong train and taking forever to get to Dottie's. We stood and waited for the board to post which platform our train would arrive on. When it announced it we went to the track, boarded and sat there talking for a minute before John realized we were on the wrong train! We had to jump off, run back to the beginning of the track and then three tracks over. It felt a bit like a spy chase in the movies as I was trying to keep up with and not lose sight of him. The train left moments later and we had a pleasant ride back to Dottie's. Dottie had planned a family dinner for me tomorrow, but unfortunately John had misread the dates and I was leaving before the meal. So, happily her mom came to meet me and enjoy a great dinner together.