Day Five: Windsor Castle for Four & Doctor Who for Two

On Wednesday, our group split up and went different places. 

Chris is a huge Doctor Who fan. He found out there is a Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, so he made plans to take a day trip there with his dad. The rest of us are not Doctor Who fans and decided to pass on this and we went to see Windsor Castle instead. 

So early Wednesday morning, Chris and Pete took a 3 hour train ride on the National Rail across the country to Cardiff. Since he didn't have his official family photographer with him, I only have a few iPhone pictures that he snapped. 

So while they were spending the day being Doctor Who geeks, the rest of us took our own little trip to Windsor. 

We also got to ride the National Rail. It was a little confusing on how to get there, but everyone was so helpful. The only time I got yelled at was when I was trying to get on this train. 

They announced it was boarding and everyone started crowding around the doors to get on like they do on the Underground. So we did the same thing, not knowing any better. Sue and the boys got on, then I got stuck in the crowd of people trying to get off. This one man yelled at me that the train wouldn't leave without me and to wait for them to get off first. He must have said it to me five times while he was squeezing past me. I just kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry". lol! I really didn't mean to make him mad! 

That first train took us about 1/2 way then we had to catch a different train into Windsor. 

I think we finally got to Windsor around 12:30pm. It was a beautiful day. I think this was the best weather we had all week. It actually was warm enough for shorts! 

As we were walking toward the castle, we came across this maze. The boys raced each other to see who could figure it out first and Connor won!

Windsor is really a nice little town with lots of restaurants and shops. 

 And of course this beautiful castle.

We really picked a beautiful day to take this tour. 

 Spencer snapped this picture of Connor and me.

The gardens were beautiful. I still can't believe how perfect the weather was this day. It was sunny and clear all day long.

We went inside and took a tour of the State Apartments and again there were no photos allowed inside. We did find out that the Queen had just been there on Monday and had hosted a luncheon in the dining room. She also attended a service at St. George's Chapel and we got to see the special chair she sits in. Two lucky tourists actually got to sit in her seat! We didn't, but I sure wanted to. :)

This is St. George's Chapel.

 The Queen's mother and father are buried inside the chapel. 

And again you were not suppose to take pictures inside, but I couldn't resist and quietly hit the button on my camera while it was hanging from my neck. I wasn't even sure I got anything, but I did.

Here a few more randoms shots from the castle grounds.

 After we toured the castle, we walked into Windsor and had lunch. We went into a few of the shops and then made our way back to the train station. 

While we riding the train back, I got a text from the London Pass company offering a special rate for a night-time bus tour of London. Since Chris and Pete were going to be late getting back from the Doctor Who Experience, we decided to go get dinner and then take the bus tour. 

We sat on top of a double decker bus for an hour and a half as they took us on a drive around London. It got a little chilly when the sun set, but we all really enjoyed the tour. We wish we had done it earlier in the week because it gave us such a great overview of where places were located. 

It is rather difficult for a novice photographer like me to get good shots at night while riding in a double decker bus. So here are a few of the ones that turned out semi-okay.

Royal Albert Hall

Harrods

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

The London Eye and Big Ben

The Tower Bridge

This was a very long day. We didn't get back to our hotel until around 11pm that night. I think it was one of my favorite days in London. We got to see so much and the weather was perfect!

Stay tuned for Day Six!

Thanks for visiting me!

Day Four-Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace

We decided to go back to Westminster Abbey this morning so we could see the inside of it. Our London Passes gave us admission and a shorter wait in line. 

This turned out entirely different than what I expected. It was definitely beautiful, but it is basically a graveyard in a church. There were tombs and more tombs and more tombs throughout the whole Abbey. We had no idea these were inside of it. They were on the floor, up the wall, in little side rooms; just everywhere. We felt weird walking on people's graves.  There were no photographs allowed inside, so I can't share any of what we saw. Needless to say, the boys were pretty bored in here. 

This was the only picture I got inside. And it really isn't inside, but more of a walkway. I still wasn't sure if this was okay, so I snapped very quickly! 

After Westminster Abbey, we went to Piccadilly Circus. We didn't spend a ton of time here, and I would love to explore it more if we get back to London some day. 

It is a lot like Times Square in New York.

We ate lunch at what turned out to be one of Connor's favorite restaurants of the whole trip: Caffe Concerto. They had some pretty fantastic ham & cheese sandwiches and chocolate mousses. I can't say I blame Connor for picking this as a favorite. :)

We decided after lunch to head towards Trafalgar Square when we happened upon the M&M store. The day got a whole lot more interesting for the boys. We spent about an hour in this store. It is four floors of nothing but M&Ms. 

After the M&M store, we continued to wander towards Trafalgar Square. We walked through Leicester Square and China Town on our way there. Everything is located very close and within walking distance or a short Underground Ride. 

And here we are at Trafalgar Square. The National Gallery is located here, but once again we arrived too late in the day to go through it. Museums and touristy sites seem to close up around 5pm.

Not sure what Chris and Connor are looking at here, but Spencer was ready to pose. 

Connor demonstrating his Lion roar. 

After spending some time relaxing and people watching at Trafalgar Square, we started to walk back towards an Underground station that would take us to the hotel. 

This is a picture of the pretty street. There are so many pretty streets here. 

This is the Admiralty Arch.

And this is the Admiralty Arch on the other side. 

And the Admiralty Arch leads to the Mall. 

Which leads to Buckingham Palace. 

I took so many, many more pictures on this day. I had a hard time narrowing it down to just these to share. And as I'm going through them, I think to myself "I wish I had taken a picture of that. Or I wish I had a different angle." I guess that means we have to go back so I can take more pictures! 

I'll leave you with this last picture of this day. This is the park that we walk through from the Underground station to Buckingham Palace. And on this day, we walked from Buckingham Palace to the Underground. 

Beautiful.

Thanks for visiting me! 

Day Three-Hitting the big sites in London

On Monday, we decided to hit the big sites in London: The London Eye, Big Ben, Tower of London and cruise on the River Thames. 

We mapped our route on the Underground and one of the lines we had to take, the Jubilee, goes way, way underground. It just amazes me how they build subways. 

The good thing about the London Eye is that you can see it above buildings so you know which direction to walk in. This is a panorama pic I shot with my iPhone of when we first saw the Eye. Notice on the far right side the boys taking pics as well. 

Once we crossed the street and walked towards the Eye, right across the river we could see Big Ben and Parliament. It is so beautiful. I really couldn't believe we standing there looking at all of these things I have only seen in pictures and on television. 

We decided to go up in the London Eye first. I had read that it gets really busy later in the day, so we wanted to try and beat the crowds. Everyone but Sue went on it. The line was really short and it didn't take us much time at all to get into one of the glass capsules. 

It moves so slow that you can't feel it at all. It takes 30 minutes to go completely around. The following are pictures from our time on the Eye.

The tall building in the picture below is the Shard. It is the tallest building in Western Europe. Connor wanted to go up to it's observation deck, but we ran out of time. Guess that means we will have to go back sometime. :)

And the view from the very top. 

After the London Eye, we decided to take a Thames River Cruise down to the Tower of London. 

We got to see a lot of interesting things on the cruise:
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Pickfords Wharf

Tower Bridge

We went to see the Tower of London.

We waited in a very long line to see the Crown Jewels. 

Unfortunately after waiting in the long line, there were no pictures allowed inside. So if you want to see what we saw, click here. The exhibition was very interesting and the jewels were beautiful. I wish I could have taken pictures of them, but I had to settle for post cards in the gift shop. 

 There were lots of towers and we went through a few of them. We could not figure out which one was the Tower of London, so we finally asked and found out that collectively they are called the Tower of London. A little confusing to us Americans. 

And of course, we had to get a picture with one of the guards. 

After the Tower of London, we grabbed an early dinner because we had kind of skipped lunch. Then we took the cruise back to Parliament and Big Ben. 

We walked to Westminster Abbey from here, but it had already closed for the day. 

So we decided to call it a day head back towards the hotel. 

I have no idea what this building is, but isn't it cool?

And we stopped off at this pub, where Pete and Chris enjoyed a pint and the rest of us enjoyed some dessert. I forgot to take a picture of the dessert, but I'm pretty sure it involved chocolate.  

This is just a small fraction of the pictures I took this day. I tried to hit the highlights and narrow down the selections to the best of the day. 

Thanks for visiting me!