Hello Readers!
I last posted right before my weekend in London! I'm so sorry it's taken me a while to post - things have wound up and gotten busy. It seems that with less than 45 days to go, we are cramming in more and more trips to new and exciting places!
London was fun - a big city, but without the order of the streets in NYC that I am so used to. We got lost more than once, but managed to find our way back on track quickly. The first night, we checked in to our hostel, locked our backpacks up in the room, and then headed out to find some dinner at Covent Garden. This was the first time we got lost. After looking at the map and finding the correct streets...we found that some of them didn't seem to exist at all. We had set out with determination in what we thought was the right direction, but after a few more turns down different streets, found ourselves walking by the hotel. Eventually we straightened ourselves out (Siri was no help at all!) and had dinner at Maxwell's - an American Grille. After that, we headed back with only a slight bit of getting lost and went to bed. Moral of the story: the streets of London are really confusing.
The second day we walked over 7 miles! Our first stop was Baker Street - we found the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b. We then headed all the way down to Hyde Park, to the Speaker's Corner, where we found a bench to have breakfast. The weather was a bit nippy, so we found ourselves zipping up our jackets and wrapping up with scarves. In an attempt to make it down to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard, we walked as fast as we could to the Palace - I have never seen so many people before in my life. Unfortunately, we couldn't get anywhere near the fence, but we did cross in front of the entrance gate so we could see in.
We next headed down to the Elizabeth Tower, and Westminster. Since Westminster is closed to touring on Saturdays, we had to settle for walking around the cloisters and having afternoon tea in the Cellarium Café. We attended Evensong in the Cathedral and were able to walk around briefly afterwards. The London Eye was terrifying, but it was cool to see London from up high. We then headed back to our hostel to have dinner and relax.
Sunday morning we headed to Oxford to visit the Eagle and the Child. While we didn't actually eat the Eagle and the Child, we did walk through and see the photos and plaques commemorating Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. We had tea at a lovely inn, and then walked around until our bus left. Since I didn't have much time to visit other landmarks around Oxford, I'm planning on returning soon.
I wish I could post photos of everything we saw, however, about three days ago I, thinking I had dumped everything to my camera, deleted all filed off the memory card - losing all photos from London and Oxford. This may be the biggest bummer of my trip so far!
I'll post again soon!
Cheers,
Beth
I last posted right before my weekend in London! I'm so sorry it's taken me a while to post - things have wound up and gotten busy. It seems that with less than 45 days to go, we are cramming in more and more trips to new and exciting places!
London was fun - a big city, but without the order of the streets in NYC that I am so used to. We got lost more than once, but managed to find our way back on track quickly. The first night, we checked in to our hostel, locked our backpacks up in the room, and then headed out to find some dinner at Covent Garden. This was the first time we got lost. After looking at the map and finding the correct streets...we found that some of them didn't seem to exist at all. We had set out with determination in what we thought was the right direction, but after a few more turns down different streets, found ourselves walking by the hotel. Eventually we straightened ourselves out (Siri was no help at all!) and had dinner at Maxwell's - an American Grille. After that, we headed back with only a slight bit of getting lost and went to bed. Moral of the story: the streets of London are really confusing.
The second day we walked over 7 miles! Our first stop was Baker Street - we found the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b. We then headed all the way down to Hyde Park, to the Speaker's Corner, where we found a bench to have breakfast. The weather was a bit nippy, so we found ourselves zipping up our jackets and wrapping up with scarves. In an attempt to make it down to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard, we walked as fast as we could to the Palace - I have never seen so many people before in my life. Unfortunately, we couldn't get anywhere near the fence, but we did cross in front of the entrance gate so we could see in.
We next headed down to the Elizabeth Tower, and Westminster. Since Westminster is closed to touring on Saturdays, we had to settle for walking around the cloisters and having afternoon tea in the Cellarium Café. We attended Evensong in the Cathedral and were able to walk around briefly afterwards. The London Eye was terrifying, but it was cool to see London from up high. We then headed back to our hostel to have dinner and relax.
Sunday morning we headed to Oxford to visit the Eagle and the Child. While we didn't actually eat the Eagle and the Child, we did walk through and see the photos and plaques commemorating Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. We had tea at a lovely inn, and then walked around until our bus left. Since I didn't have much time to visit other landmarks around Oxford, I'm planning on returning soon.
I wish I could post photos of everything we saw, however, about three days ago I, thinking I had dumped everything to my camera, deleted all filed off the memory card - losing all photos from London and Oxford. This may be the biggest bummer of my trip so far!
I'll post again soon!
Cheers,
Beth
Your trip to London seems SO idyllic and is basically the trip of my dreams!!! Thanks for the post and for visiting the Eagle and Child! So sorry about your pictures... :( Thankfully you have the memories at least!! :)
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