London

This was our last week in the UK and we still hadn't been to London! The train service is very efficient so tickets were booked on line for Monday and off we headed. It is just an hour from Northampton train station to Euston. From there we navigated our way through the Underground to Bank Station, which Jessica had thought we then just need a short walk to our first destination, Tower of London. If you come out of the Underground at a different exit than you plan it can be very disorientating, which of course happened to us. To confuse us even more crowds were starting to gather for what we found out later was the Olympians parade through London. In the end that was to our advantage as hundreds of thousands lined the streets during the day, keeping them away for the main tourist sights.



 

We eventually found our way to the Tower of London. We joined a Beefeater Guard's tour to start with and then made our way to the crown jewels. No queues here, and plenty of time for a good view. After having a good look around the other main exhibitions we walked along the Thames Path down to Waterloo Bridge, stopping to look at St Paul's Cathedral, and to walk out on to the Millennium Bridge. Stephen was keen to visit the Transport Museum which was in Covent Garden. While we spent an hour or so in there, I took the opportunity to browse the markets, window shop some of the upmarket shops and watch some street theatre.

 

 

 

Next stop was the National Art Gallery, which we had visited when we were here last time. We hadn't had enough time that day to see it all so thought it would be good to go again. The Art Gallery is in Trafalger Square and this had obviously been a very busy place in regards to the parade. There were still hundreds of people about enjoying themselves though most had gone by the time we emerged from the Gallery at 6pm(closing time) and the staging and fencing was being packed up.

We had arranged to meet Alice (Jim and Julianne's daughter) in a Tapa's bar at Kings Cross at 6:30 so it was back to the Underground to find our there. It spent a very pleasant evening with Alice, catching up with all her news, and enjoying a drink and some food. It is a short walk back to Euston Station to catch the train again and travel back to Northampton. It was a long day but certainly worth the trip.

 

 

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