London Eye

The second last day of the trip saw us take in another iconic landmark - The London Eye. We skipped the queue again which made us happy but I don't think it thrilled those we walked past. Of all the things we've spent money on - skipping the queue has always worked out well for us.

The Eye is 137m high so less than half the height of the Eiffel Tower but it is still absolutely massive. There are 32 pods and the eye is constantly moving so you walk onto a moving pod, they close the door behind you and you're off.

The full revolution takes about half an hour and you have the most wonderful views everywhere you look. Despite it being a slightly overcast day we could still see for miles.

Before we knew it we could see we were on the downward journey and although we missed out on a shot from the on board camera (thank you to the family that pushed in front of the whole pod) we had a great time and were very happy that we'd gone.

Madame Tussauds

Our last day in London saw a check out of the hotel at 12 noon - hmm, not great planning, the flight home didn't leave until 10pm! We decided to squeeze in one last icon and got two for our troubles.

We travelled on the tube to the famous Baker Street of Sherlock Holmes fame and made our way to Madame Tussauds. I was pleasantly surprised by the length of the queue - being a last minute decision we hadn't purchased the now mandatory skip the line tickets. We joined the queue (behind the family with the dad who brought Johnnie Walker to the party - you should have seen his face when the security guard told him he couldn't take it with him!). As we progresed it all became clear as we heard the guard tell the family behind us that the queue inside was an hour long - arrgghh!

Clearly they've realised that waiting in line for an hour isn't going to make people happy so they've put interesting information and interactive displays at various points. Finally we got into the waxwork museum and began our visit. We looked at some that looked nothing like their namesakes (Shane Warne & Kylie Minogue) and then saw others where the likeness was a bit eerie (Russell Brand had me convinced that he'd move any minute). I must admit that my favourite was David Beckham (how could I choose otherwise) although he was standing a bit too close to Posh for my liking! In all,it was a very considered exhibit and there was some interactive stuff you could do too.

We moved onto lunch and decided to walk to Regents Park which is just around the corner. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours taking in the park, watching the clouds and getting scared by the geese.

We made our way back to the hotel and Brian our friendly london cabbie was soon there to take us to the airport for the long flights home.