I’m not sure how it was managed, but we’ve just returned from a fantastic 2 week road trip exploring castles in England and Scotland –and we didn’t get into a car accident. We may have been issued a couple tickets… but we’ll take 2 tickets over a car accident in a foreign country any day!
We landed in Heathrow Airport, picked up our car rental, and headed to our hotel next to the Tower of London. Driving to the hotel was a bit hairy –we have never driven on the other side of the road while sitting on the opposite side of the car. I may have grown a white hair from that experience….
Anyway, the first thing we did after dropping off our luggage was run to the Thames River to look at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Ooh. Aah. We certainly don’t have that in Arizona. Arizona did buy the wrong bridge from London though (it sits across Lake Havasu)…
I think we passed out shortly thereafter but it didn’t take us long to get over the jet lag & time zone because the next day we traipsed all over London nonstop! Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, the Portrait Gallery, Churchill War Rooms, St James Park…
Big Ben sprouting out of husband’s head. This bridge was extremely packed with tourists, all seemingly fascinated with the selfie stick I brought.
Thanks for the update Big Ben!
Westminster Abbey
Do people really use these or are they used predominately by tourists taking photos? They do make a great photo prop!
I think they need a larger BEWARE sign in multiple languages.
Trafalgar Square, near the Portrait Gallery. No photos in the Portrait Gallery, it was extremely crowded, probably because it was free!
St. James Park
An extremely crowded Buckingham Palace.
We stopped for sustenance at this awesome Sherlock Holmes themed pub. The interior has memorabilia & photos of all things Sherlock Holmes. There’s also a mini museum behind glass windows that you can peek into while dining.
Bangers, gravy, & mash of course!
After stuffing ourselves, we walked the heavy British fare off through the Churchill War Rooms. The amount of artifacts and info in that museum is overwhelming. We did not spend nearly enough time there to take it all in.
All in all, a successful first day exploring London! The great part about all of these sights is that they’re all within a really short walking distance & we didn’t have to drive!