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I arrived in London on Tuesday with my three suitcases (two large and 1 small) and managed to get myself onto the DLR train with no problems, however when I arrived in the city, I found out that the underground passageway I thought was available, was closed for maintenance and I had to make the connection at street level. Getting up to the street was not a problem - escalators and elevators galore - however getting back down at the other end proved to be an unsurmountable task when I realised it was only stairs.
Rather than attempt the impossible, I hailed a cab to take me the rest of the way to the hotel. The Burns hotel in Earls Court was perfect. I'd nabbed an Internet rate that meant I was only paying 55 pounds for a 120-a-night hotel. Brilliant. :)
That night, I organised to have dinner at Harry-David's and I met up with Alex (who was staying with H-D temporarily) for a couple of geocaches in Hammersmith, before heading to the tube to H-D's apartment. We ended up having fish and chips and looking over photos from Sam's wedding. Alex had to work, so Harry-David and I had another of our typical hours-long debates.
On Wednesday, I had booked a bus tour to take me to Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge (photos: 12/08/2009 Bus Tour). It was well worth the money paid, and would highly recommend the tour to anyone with a tight time-frame in London, but would like to see some of the more notable tourist attractions in Southern England.
The tour left from Victoria coach station and before we knew it, we were already at Windsor Castle. We had 1.5 hours there and I managed to see most of the castle as well as part of the town. The state apartments and Queens' doll House were interesting - though once you've seen the King's state bedchamber(which apparently wasn't used for sleeping in at all?!?), the King's closet, the King's dressing room, the King's drawing room, and of course, all of the same rooms for the Queen as well... it started to get a little monotonous. Did I mention the Queen's Ballroom/Audience chamber/presence chamber...? They certainly seem to have a room for every part of a monarch's day :)
St George's chapel is also beautiful. I managed to get a good look-see whilst most of the crowd were checking out the changing of the guard. Afterwards, I headed in to part of the town of Windsor, before getting some lunch and hiking back to the bus to make sure I was back on time.
After our first stop, we got onto the motorway and headed to Bath. This was the longest journey - 2 hours - and allowed us time to eat/sleep/rest. I thought Bath was a gorgeous town. I would have loved to spent more time there, but sadly, 1.5 hours was all our schedule would allow us. We visited the Roman baths first and then had free time. I headed over to the Jane Austen museum and then did some walking through the town centre and took some photos of the abbey.
The last stop on our tour was of course stonehenge. Here we had 45mins to check out the stones - though I spent 15mins queued up at the souvenir shop, so the time went by quickly. I would have liked to get out to some of the circular burial grounds nearby but ran out of time. It was certainly very impressive :) On the way back, the bus dropped me near Earls Court and I walked back to the hotel.
On Wednesday (photos: 13/08/2009 London Day1), after a late rise and a full english buffet breakfast, I met up with my old primary school friend, Erin, who I hadn't seen in 21 years. Unfortunately we'd lost contact after a few house moves on both our parts and only just found each other on facebook a couple of years ago. It was great to catch up and see how she was doing. It was a shame we only had 1 hour to chat, over lunch, but it was great to see and hear about how well she is doing :)
In the afternoon, I went on a London walk tour - this was 'Occult London and the Da Vinci Code', though there was less of the occult and more of the Da Vinci Code. It was very interesting and we got to see the inside of the Temple church. The tour ended up at Westminster (after a tube ride that I missed - thankfully the next train was 1min after, and the tour guide stopped at the other end for any straglers), so I took some of the obligatory tourist shots around parliament house and Big Ben.
That evening, I met up with Alex and Miranda for dinner and some afternoon geocaching. As it turned out, I managed to get in some 29 caches whilst in London/South England over 4 days - not a bad effort at all - and largely thanks to Alex's enthusiasm for this new-found hobby :).
My last day involved a walk through many of london's parks - as I had not had a chance to see them in previous trips (photos: 14/08/2009 London Day2). I started with Holland Park, then onto Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, then St James Park. For the evening, I'd organised to go on a Jack the Ripper walking tour with Alex, however the guide never showed up (or perhaps he did show up, saw the 100+ people gathered outside Tower Hill tube station and went home?)
The crowd thinned out as time went by and 1 hour after the supposed departure time, we finally gave up. Instead, we headed over to Leicester Square for an entertaining night of standup comedy. Before we knew it, it was after 11 and I needed to get back to the hotel to get some sleep before departing early the next morning. I guess the Jack the Ripper tour will have to wait until the next time I visit London :)
I managed to get to the airport the next day with very few problems despite the three suitcases - thankfully they all have wheels :).
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