Tuesday we did a walking tour around town past Buckingham palace, trafalgar square, westminster abbey, Big Ben etc, so was quite interesting to hear some history of the places.
Buckingham palace
Lion statue at trafalgar square with proud tourist
Then we nipped over to brick lane on the east side, for an authentic English Indian curry and rice. The young waiter we had stood and chatted to us for most of the meal (very Indian) mostly about cricket and NZ.
Jack the Ripper's haunts were on the east side of London , so we joined a walking tour to hear the story's of his grisly murders and look at the new buildings that they have put up since then, mostly parking lots and alleyways. Good fun to see the east side of London though.
Wednesday we had our fat tire bike tour of the river Thames, which was very cool to do, started at Waterloo (such a funny name) and biked along the south bank to the tower bridge. We then almost got run over crossing the bridge, before getting the river ferry back to near where we started. Then a quick dash around covent garden, trafalgar square etc. Great way to see a large chunk of the downtown city without getting sore feet and tired legs :)
Then this evening we watched the ceremony of the keys at the tower of London, which has been going on every night for over 700 years. Involves beefeaters (who have definitely eaten too many pies) in big red coats shouting orders at queens guards with big silly furry black hats, then they trot off down to the gate to throw the bolt over and turn the key in the lock, then trot back, point guns at each other, before playing the last post. All very ceremonious of course! Was great to see and experience.
Then they let us out through the man door in the locked gate so we didnt have to spend the night locked in the tower of London.
Tower bridge opening up...
Back down again...
More to come soon...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:London - England
No comments:
Post a Comment