Then we hopped on the Heathrow Express. The train was nice and fast and in no time at all we were pulling into the Paddington Station. I love Paddington Station. It is old and new filled with people moving all over the place. Unfortunately these are the only two pictures we got at the station and they are blurry. Just know we were in Paddington, it was 8 in the morning and we were happy. We'd looked up different places to go from here and as we left the station we leaded toward Hyde Park. This part of London is just gorgeous. There are shops, pubs, fish and chip, and curry places to get something to eat. There are white fronted hotels, tree lined streets and everything is clean and fresh. Hyde park is also a treat. In the early morning it is filled with bike commuters, people running, and people taking their horses out for a trout. There is lots of space and everyone just sort of moves seamlessly past eachother. There are also signs and maps everywhere. Talk about a great city to do a walking tour in. Every 300 yards or so we'd find ourselves at a new map and could reorient ourselves. Then our son suggested we just take a picture of a map with our phone and we could carry it with us. Hello brilliant child! It's probably easier if I just tell you the things we did in a list.
We walked from Hyde park to Buckingham Place. Then we headed down to Westminster Abbey, passing the Guards Museum where we listened to guys playing the bagpipes and drums and they rehearsed for the changing of the guard. We saw Big Ben, we crossed the Thames to the London Eye and Aquarium. We ate overpriced McDonalds Breakfast Sandwiches because Dr. J was starving and insisted we had to eat something immediately. We walked by Parliament and Downing Street where the Prime Minister Lives. We headed to Trafalgar Square by the Military museum where the kids enjoyed looking at the horses. Then we headed back toward Buckingham Palace. We stopped at the back side of the military museum to watch the soldiers dressed in old fashion uniforms on the horses. Then we headed back to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. At this point it was noon and while we were reluctant we knew we should probably head back. We went back through Hyde park getting ice cream at this cafe on the lake. It was 2 pounds a cone ($3.90) but it was totally worth it. It was the perfect pick me up and it got us back to Paddington Station, because at this point we'd walked almost eight miles and the kids were starting to get a little tired. I loved London. It was clean and easy to walk. The signs, maps, and high concentration of sites made it extremely tourist friendly. It is definitely a costly place to be but I would love to go back when I had the opportunity to go into all of these places. I think it would be totally be worth buying the London Pass if you were going to spend any significant amount of time in London. It gets you into a lot of attractions for free and you can even add a travel pass so you can travel on the underground. Seriously I would love to go back again and see everything! Maybe someday...for now though this was a great introduction to London and for less than 200 US Dollars (our travel into the city from the airport and our food) our family of six got to spend a day in London and see things I'd only ever imagined I'd read about in books or see on Masterpiece episodes. I'm so happy that we accidentally ended up with that ten hour layover. Scroll down to the bottom if you want to catch the video of the changing of the guard. It was crazy to me how close you are able to get to the palace the Queen of England lives or the house where the Prime Minister lives. Seriously nuts that people can just drive right by. And just so you know Cheetah crashed out on the plane and slept the entire way to Chicago. We had so many people tell us we were nuts for doing this, but let me tell you, it was SO WORTH IT!!!!
Love all the pictures!
ReplyDelete"Free" trip to London FTW!!! We took the metro when we did the same thing in 2010. Oh man it was long. Now I want to do a bike tour next time we have a layover there. :) Glad it did what you wanted it to! Hooray for babies sleeping on planes!
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