On our third day in London, we decided to take the advice of one of our cabbies and start off at The Houses of Parliament and just walk all the way down to the Tower Bridge. But first, we grabbed a bit of breakfast, so I thought I’d share what I had. We went to a place that was walking distance from our hotel called the Moulin Grill. I absolutely love bacon in any form, and British bacon is more like ham than what we are used to in America. Either way, it was a tasty and inexpensive way to have my traditional English breakfast (no beans, but with grilled tomatoes).
We hopped on the tube on the Jubilee line and headed towards Westminster. This dropped us off right in front of Houses of Parliament and The Clock Tower, otherwise known as Big Ben. We took a walk along the Westminster Bridge to where the London Eye is located, which is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe. It was quite crowded (I’m sure due to the fact that it was a Saturday), so we choose not to ride it. Instead, we snapped pictures of ourselves with the attraction in the background (only my picture is shown). After we passed the London Eye, we noticed that we were on a trail called The Jubilee Greenway, which is 60 kilometers long and each kilometer marks one year of the Queen’s reign. We then passed through the Soutbank, went into Southwark Cathedral and saw many other fantastic sites on the way to Tower Bridge.
My new studded Topshop shoes with my Rebecca Minkoff schoolboy.
Janice took this great picture of a sign on a bench.
Random shots around Southbank.
There was poetry posted all along the rails of a pier on the Southbank. I loved this poem.
Millennium Bridge and Shakespeare’s Globe
The sign above explains pretty much everything we saw on the approach to Tower Bridge.
Clink Prison Museum, Tate Modern, Southwark Bridge
Southwark Cathedral
I just really liked the lines and the way the angles looked in these pictures.
Sights of the Olympics were alive and well while we were in town, and we realized that we were actually between Olympic events: The Summer Olympics games ended on August 12, but the Paralympics games began on August 29th. Everywhere we went, we could see the Olympics’ mascots Wenlock and Mandeville. At one point, Janice and I gave in and posed with one of them as we approached Tower Bridge.
Tower of London
After having lunch at a cute little place called Noodle Noodle, our last stop was Buckingham Palace. There wasn’t a guard ceremony that day, so we just walked around, taking in the enormity of the grounds. In the picture below, we are standing on The Victoria Memorial with Buckingham Palace in the background (Janice is pictured on the right). Below that is a great picture of The Mall, which is a ceremonial route to Buckingham Palace. The last pictures are of the gateway to the Queen’s Gardens, the Queen’s Gallery (we only went to the gift shop), and a marker for Princess Diana’s memorial walkway.
Gateway to the Gardens at Buckingham Palace
The Queen’s Gallery and a marker for Princess Diana’s Memorial Walkway.
It was amazing how long of a walk we actually took from Westminster Bridge all the way over to Buckingham Palace! But is was a fantastic walk, and I want to thank our cabbie for suggesting it to us. It was quite a lovely day for a long stroll, and it did take us the bulk of the day to do it. Next post: The Rewind Fesitval at Henley-on-Thames on Temple Island.
Please note that most photos were taken with my iPhone unless otherwise noted. Photos 4, 6, 7, 17, 20, 21, 22, and 23 were by Janice Gutana (photo collages are counted as one photo).