London is Awesome!

Trafalgar Tour Day 8 (last day)

Bath

This old city still has its original Roman Baths. It was awesome going through the old part of this city and seeing how the Romans used the baths, and how the city was laid out. This is another place I would love to come back to and enjoy the view.

Windsor

We had seen this castle before the Trafalgar tour started, so I ended up exploring the local farmers market. Also, since horse races were happening, the Queen was in residence!

London

I love London! It is super hectic, especially when you are trying to learn the tubes. My gosh! So many bodies, and very little ventilation. Defiantly suggest you give yourself 30 to 45 minutes more time to get somewhere if you’ve never used the tubes before. Especially when the close tubes for maintenance. Also recommend getting an Oyster card for public transportation, it’s so much cheaper and you can get your unused money back (score!).

I also went on a separate Jack the Ripper Tour. The tour guide from London Walks was amazing! I will say that in total I counted 11 other Jack the Ripper Tours going on at the same time, and only one other was associated with London Walks. This was also only one of the meeting times, there was at least 2 other times during the day that this walk was happening. That is a lot of tours! So sad I couldn’t do a Sherlock Homes Tour. Next time!

I Have Arrived (in London!)

Let me just start out by saying that a 24 hour day is not something that you should look forward too! Especially if most of that day is flying.

I flew out to Iceland on Iceland Air, and let me just say that I really enjoyed this airline, even if my in flight entertainment didn’t work. They were waiting at the door with a bottle of water, and each seat had a pillow and a blanket. The only complaint I have is that they kept saying that two trolleys would be coming by, one with paid items and one with complementary items. Both times and on both flights, only one came by, which was very confusing.

After arriving in Iceland, I had about an hour to entertain myself. And let me just day, the airport portion that I occupied made me feel like I was in a very expensive Ikea. Nice quality items, with clean uncomplicated lines. It will be interesting to see how I feel  about this airport after spending 9 weeks in Amsterdam. After a three hour flight to London, I finally made it to my hotel, yeay!

One thing to note, at least about the hotel I stayed in (IBIS), is that you don’t get complementary shampoo, conditioner, and lotion bottles. Instead you get two auto dispensers. One is hand soap next to sink, and the other is soap in the shower. There are no wash clothes provided, so you’ll either use your hands or bring a washcloth, shower scrubber, etc...

After sleeping 12 hours, dad and I did a Stonehenge tour. We hit Winchester Castle, Oxford, and finally Stonehenge at sunset. This was scheduled with Evans Evans Tours (which was an amazing tour company).

Windsor Castle

Was a lovely place, sadly we were unable to see the church, and weren’t allowed to take pictures in the state rooms, but it was filled with large paintings of past important people, and loads of swords, guns, and armor.

Oxford

This was a really interesting old timey town/school.

 

Notice anything Hogwarty about this?

Sun dial that is apparently close to useless the majority of the time, but still lovely

One of the libraries

Stonehenge

This was amazing to see. We were able to get photos of this location without any persons in the scene. The stones are huge, monolithic, and amazing to try and figure out how they were moved and stacked.

Overall a good way to end the first full day in England :)