London...version 2.0

Here are the long overdue pics and tales of our London trip. We had a week off of school in February for Semana Blanca (white week). But since Nick was still supposed to work we compromised on a 4 day trip to London. London in February is a bit cold and wet but we had plans to have a great time. After we arrived we regrouped, grabbed our umbrellas and headed out toward a steakhouse we had found in our London tourbook. Gauchos is an Argentinian steakhouse that is all about the cow...cowhide chairs, leather everywhere and melt in your mouth steak...Mmm I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. After we were completely stuffed we rolled ourselves to Picadilly Circus and the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum.

World's tallests man??? not believing it?lol Us either. But they had some artwork made out of extraordinary things... like gumballs

And a piece of the Berlin Wall...

Joe took a turn at being the man with no bottom half...

And....tootsweet...you probably remember this from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fame...toot sweet, toot sweet the candies you whistle the whistle you eat...

That ended our first day and we had a restful night at our hotel near Grosvenor Square. We woke in the morning to a few rays of sunshine. I quick took a picture. Turns out the church behind us is the Ukranian Church. Who knew they had those in London.

Our first stop of the day was the Tower of London. I had always thought it was a prison where all the notorious prisoners were kept. But, it was the original castle of London that just happened to house a few of the more famous prisoners...who were more or less treated as royalty until they met their untimely demise at the hands of the executioner.

It was a cold, cold morning....

It is also where they keep the Crown Jewels. All the Jewels used in the Coronation ceremonies.

The Crowns were stunning. Absolutely stunning but...no pictures allowed. Below is the Tower Bridge as seen from inside the Tower of London.

Inside the Medieval Section.

Jess....probably in a closet but we pretended it was a jail. :D

After fully exploring the Tower we decided to cross the Thames on the Tower Bridge to hunt out a Britain at War museum.

The Britain at War Museum was sort of an experiential thing where you can read papers and watch a film on what happened in London during WWII. It really was a whole different experience than what we had in the US. Very interesting and a little playful as well...

After that we had an interesting historical discussion as we wandered to Shakespear's Globe Theater....and found this ruin of a Medieval Church.

The current Globe theater is a replica built using materials and methods of the original theater. The current location is not the same as the original though as it'd be sitting in the river Thames back in the day. So several feet behind it would have been the original location in the theater and well, let's call it "entertainment" district.

We were so lucky because there was a theater group rehearsing for a production for school children. So we were able to watch a little bit of Macbeth in Shakespear's theater...a real treat. Bubble bubble toil and trouble, something wicked this way comes.

The seats where the finer gents sat were in a decorated section.

After our inner theater geeks were satisfied we headed back across the Thames on the Millenium Bridge.

And that was a full day.

So, in the morning we woke early and caught a bus to Windsor Castle.

Even the lights had crowns.

The Moat...

The flag flying means that the Queen was in residence when we were there. We spotted several people out horseback riding in the gardens and when Nick commented on it. They told him that it could be the Queen as she rides daily while she is there. So that is our story...we saw the Queen riding. ;)

The Albert Memorial and St Georges Cathedral. It was amazing to walk through there thinking of the ceremonies that had taken place and people who'd paced those same aisles.

Back at the hotel...Grosvenor Square..on the way to Harrods for some shopping and a failed attempt at finding a place for tea. I know Harrods has tea but, Alexa and I were attempting to find a place in the tourbook...but it did not work out.

We shopped a bit at Harrods, bought the puppies some biscuits. Then found a American style diner...they had one bottle of rootbeer left that we all shared.

The thing about London is that even though you pack your visit with amazing moments and spectacular sights it always leaves you wanting more. So, we said farewell to the city knowing that our list of places we had to visit on our next trip had only grown. Hope you enjoyed seeing London through our eyes.
~Bren