London, United Kingdom

It was so nice to stretch out in our decent sized room and sleep in a larger sized bed. We have a nice view out the window – no notable land marks but nice night lights. We left the window open to give some fresh air which makes hotel sleep better I think.

Breakfast is included in our room and we enjoyed a full English with cooked to order omelettes and a great fruit salad selection of melons and pineapple before setting off via the underground three stops to Victoria station to get a hop on hop off bus. There is always a challenge when you exit an underground station to get the right side of the street – which can sometimes be four sides or more. We had our iPad on map, but it still took us a little walk around a couple of corners before we found the right bus company. Our initial impressions were there were a lot of people about, but that was to be expected. We had a bit of a wait until the right bus route came along (they have several routes you can take) and we got a front seat, partially covered on the top deck.

We chose the ‘Big Bus’ company and the red route which took us around a big loop of approximately 2.5hrs around ‘central’ London. We saw so much its not possible to list – nor can I remember (a few days later) but I can say that we both felt bewildered and slightly overwhelmed by the size, scale and busy nature of London. OMG – its crazy and we think the fullest city we have been to so far. Cars, taxi’s, work vehicles and people everywhere. We did not intend to hop off at any stops – but use it as an overview guide of the city and a platform to get our bearings in order to plan our other days more efficiently.

Having said that it was overwhelming – it was not necessarily totally in a negative sense. London also surprised us by being brighter, cleaner, and full of attractive monuments, parks and streets of grand heritage buildings verses a lot of modern high rises. There are also the three royal palaces in the city/fringes (St. James, Kensington, and Buckingham). The high streets and very expensive inner city residences were so grand – it was definitely overload viewing everything. We also decided then that we would not even try to fit all our possibles in, as it would be too tiring and London would warrant more than a week to tick off the list – we only had 4 full days.

After our bus loop we hopped off by the Tower Bridge to take a cruise up the river to Greenwich to see the date line. The sun had popped out in full after a slightly cloudy start to the day, so we felt very lucky again weather wise. The Thames river cruise took just under an hour and was also a pleasant surprise to find it more scenic than expected. Being prime land what once might have been industrial dockland has been transformed into trendy living and work spaces. There were a few nice bridges, and we got a bit of history on the life of the river from workers past, hanging platforms, modern buildings, to where Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen live, including the traditional pub Ian bought to save it from being modernised into an apartment or such. As we got closer to Greenwich there were a lot more modern higher rise apartments average price to buy your little piece; £1 million and rising. There is so much development here you wonder when it will all stop.

At Greenwich we got a picnic lunch from a Marks and Spencer Food Supermarket of healthy smoked Scottish mackerel salad for me and sandwich for Vern plus some nice ‘Jewell’ raspberries which were delicious and then made our way up the hill to the observatory which was a 15 minute walk through a park with a challenging steep part at the end. You could either pay to go into the observatory and stand on or over ‘the 0-0 longitude line’ (the famous point from which all time is measured – GMT – Greenwich Mean Time) in a courtyard or if you were budget conscious there was an extension of the ‘0-0 meridian line’ just outside the gate which was small but enough to say you did it.

Mission accomplished we made our way back to town and found the tube and worked out a way to get into town to Piccadilly circus which is the equivalent of Time Square. Essentially it is a cross roads with about 8 feeders, with a square in the middle and a couple of big electronic bill boards. On the square is a statue and people hang out there to watch and be seen. You also find buskers and entertainers hoping to profit from the crowds. Piccadilly is also in the centre of the Theatre district. Like when we were in New York we had considered going to West End to see a show but the prices are not cheap and we did not have time to get up early and queue for a half price at Trafalgar square as that would probably gobble up 1/2 day.

The underground route from Greenwich to Piccadilly required 2 changes as it was different coloured (direction) routes. Our first transfer was in a modern docklands business district and one of those stations that has the same name but is split for the different lines, so you exit one station completely and go across the street or so and enter the other ‘line’ station. All good until we entered station number two which apparently half of London was also entering. Maybe a little exaggeration, but there were not hundreds, but thousands all entering this station which was large and had 3 lots of escalators going down to a platform that barely had room to move. The train was behind a glass screen and had staff at each door monitoring and managing the crowds of travellers. We waited until we could cram on to the already full tube and then it was relaxation breathing for the next 10-15 minutes.

I have used the word ‘tube’ as there are two types of trains on the underground – one with a bit of room above your head and almost hexagonal shape to roof, and a more modern one that is like a big metal tube or pipe – round metal and not very roomy. This one was not air-conditioned and it was a warm day with body to body room only. It was horrible and would also be even to the non-claustrophobic who is not used to this. It was a very unpleasant experience where you would tell your self you could breathe in the thick warm limited space around you and just counted the stops till you could hop off. Yuk. I love trains but not this sort of underground where you feel so totally at the mercy of what happens. I kept thinking of the underground bombing and then trying not to think about it, resigning myself to que sera sera as there was nothing I could do about anything. LOL.

After arriving at Piccadilly and ticking that spot off we took some time to work out which feeder street to exit on (by foot) and made our way to a little street on the way to Trafalgar Square which our Big Bus tour guide said had good cheaper eateries. It was about 8:30 by this stage and we were pretty hungry so it was a quick decision to give a Spanish place a go. It was quite small but had some good review stickers displayed, and ended up being reasonable, tasty and a pleasing choice. Not the best or flashiest but very acceptable. We chose off a 3 course special for £12 each. Entrees were beans in a tomato and choritzo sauce, and one of the best potato tortilla we have had, followed by Chicken with Spanish sauce and a Spinach crepe, dessert was lemon cheesecake and Spanish rice cream pudding.

Re-energised we walked a couple of back streets to Trafalgar square where I would have loved to climb on the lions like others but they were pretty high up and would have taken some unglamorous shoving from Vern to get me up. That part I could have managed but the getting down looked a bit tricky.

It was a big day with a lot taken in and as mentioned there is so much to see and do in London it would be nice to have time to wander around some of the lovely streets we saw from the bus today but that may have to be another time. Note to self – avoid peek hour train travel in London – which in the evening I think must start around 5 and not finish till 7:30 as it was 6:30 when we hit the ridiculous crowds. We saw some notices about a train strike this week which could be very inconvenient – will keep a watch for more news. Fortunately the underground trip from Trafalgar to home was no where near as hot or crowed at 9:30 – 10 and bed was awfully welcome when we arrived.