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!