London can be frightfully overwhelming. It is far more spread out than I had imagined. Which meant there was little wandering from one place to another — which I like to do. Luckily the Tube is extremely well run, clean and easy to use. It made getting around bearable. I still wish I could have been able to explore a bit more. But, it’s just what London is.
In order to sort of help us realize that yes, we really are in London, we went to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. Photography is not allowed inside the Abbey, but I took a few of the facade.
I was quite excited to visit Poet’s Corner. Yep, I’m a nerd.
Just around the corner is the Parliament building and Big Ben. It chimed while we were there!
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| Bobbies! |
I managed to “cut” out the very strange “performers” dressed in bad, cheap queen costumes, bopping around to weird hiphop music — as if that is something that warrants some change. Unless we were supposed to pay them to stop…
After that, we went to the Churchill War Rooms. Located underneath 10 Downing Street, Churchill set up a strategic underground world with bedrooms, map rooms, communications, even a kitchen, in order to keep essential staff safe during the bombings. When the war ended, the rooms were locked up and just left. About ten years ago they were opened up as a museum. Fascinating place. And as if I didn’t like Churchill already, he only seems even cooler now!
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| A German enigma machine |
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| Color-coded pins for the maps |
We stumbled across the Household Cavalry Museum, which is the Queen’s official horse guard. In addition to a museum with the history of the unit, you can also see a the stables with the horses and watch the crew taking care of them.
Then up to Covent Garden to the London Transport Museum. A very fun museum that shows the various modes of public transport in the history of the city. Lots of train cars and omnibuses you can get on and pretend to be traveling in the good old days.
We made another attempt at finding a neighborhood to just wander around (we were ultimately foiled) but we did find the theatre playing Mousetrap – the longest continually-running show in the world.
