Day one London Sightseeing

Day 6 – London.

Full on tourist sightseeing was the order of the day. The temperature was a cool 16 degrees, and rain forecast. We do not seem to be able to get away from the rain.

First port of call was Victoria Station. With the current terrorist scares in London, armed police are everywhere. It is quite confronting to see coppers walking around carrying machine guns!, and everywhere you look there are CCTV cameras.

We purchased tickets on the hop on hop off London sightseeing bus, and The Tower of London, before walking to Buckingham palace to see the Changing of the Guard. It was very crowded and although we got a good view of the various regiments coming and going we were too far away to see what was actually happening in the grounds of the palace.

Then it was on board the bus, an open topped double decker, for a tour of the sights of London. Absolutely amazing – so many fabulous old buildings and places we had heard about all our lives it was hard to know where to look, and the traffic - we thought Hong Kong traffic was bad.

We were amused to see deck chairs placed in neat rows in the parks – especially as it was quite cool and drizzling with rain. Wish full thinking perhaps! We got off the bus at Hyde Park speakers corner and sat in a couple only to find out a sit cost gbp1.50 so we quickly moved on, and had a quick wander through the Park, a look at Marble Arch, then it was back on the bus. Next stop The Tower of London. They really knew how to build something to last in those days. Very interesting place to visit and those jewels! Some serious Bling.

By now it had hailed, had got a lot colder and was raining a lot, so on the bus and back to Victoria Station, and on to one of London’s obliquitous double decked red buses for home. Brian was happy to that there was a pub on every corner and made a beeline for “The Wheatsheaf”, that happened to be across the road from the Comfort Inn. We went into 4 more before we came across one that served meals – The Canton Inn. A nice bloke from Newcastle served us some fairly average food. The end of day 6. 21287 steps for the day.