Day 8: London

Day 8

Our second day in London, Monday, we had completely planned out from beginning to end! This would be the only day while we were there that the Changing of the Guard would be taking place, so we planned that for our morning. We got to Buckingham Palace early to stake out our place so we could see the show.

It all took place in stages from about 10:45 to 12:00 noon

I'm not really sure how to describe it except for a lot of pomp & circumstance and not what we expected... but very cool to experience

Other than reading the description in my guidebook, you had no idea what or why things were going on, you just watched...

my favorite part was when the Royal Band played "Dancing Queen" (I got it on video on my Flip & may download it one day)

It was very cool to be at Buckingham Palace & experience the ceremony. The Palace is humongous (much more so than it appears from the front)

once zooming in on this picture, I realized that some of the guards may be female...

After the ceremony, we went to a little Pub around the corner from the Palace. Of course Ben got a pint of Ale & I had "fish & chips"... I just figured I HAD TO since that's what I hear "they" eat, and it was yummy!

And then it was time to meet up with our tour guide. We had a guide for the afternoon to take us to a few places we had not yet been... and he was great!

First, we went by Parliament & Big Ben... this was the first we had seen it during the day.  Our guide called this photo op the "money shot"... I agreed... it's gorgeous & there were news cameras broadcasting from this exact same angle

Then we walked across the street to Westminster Abbey and he gave us a tour inside (no pictures allowed)... It was absolutely beautiful.  We went to a lot of beautiful places of worship on this trip and I was just in awe of all the architectural beauty and details and history... 

This is where Prince William & Kate Middleton are getting married (they announced their engagement the NEXT day after we visited here)!

side entrance to the church (potentially more beautiful than the front)

The day before was their version of "Veteran's Day" (Remembrance Sunday) so these crosses & poppy flowers were everywhere to honor fallen soldiers from around the world... it was extremely moving to be there at this time & see the sea of crosses

Next, we drove across town to The Tower of London (a palace, castle, prison, & home of the Crown Jewels)... along our drive, we learned a lot about the city's history

From here was our best (and such a gorgeous) view of the Tower Bridge... the biggest misconception is people calling this bridge the London Bridge (which is next to this bridge and actually very nondescript & boring in comparison)

My favorite thing at the Tower of London was seeing the Crown Jewels... it was so much more than crowns & jewelry (even though that's pretty cool, but Ben really enjoyed it too)... our guide told us all these cool stories and the history behind the stones and where they came from and how they made it to the crowns & everything was just stunning.

The grounds at the Tower were very cool too. There are Ravens living there, an execution site, massive towers with 15 foot thick walls, this cool cannon

we got our picture with some Beefeaters (the guards of the tower who actually live on the premises with their families and now give tours)

When we left, we saw the Tower Bridge lit up at night....

This was the only night that we had reservations for a nice dinner... a restaurant that had been highly recommended to us, RULES (considered the oldest restaurant in London)

the decor was very eclectic and the food was perfect

Finally, we went to see GREASE... it was so much fun to see a "Broadway" play in London... everything was the same, but when they were speaking you could hear a hint of a British accent in their voices

We had such a fun time & were singing the songs the rest of the night! We were just so sad that the next day would be our last :(

Day 7: London

Day 7

Sunday morning, it was time for Ben & I to depart for our little 3 year anniversary trip! The plane ride from Madrid to London was only about 2 hours and we arrived before noon to a rainy, gloomy day in beautiful London.

We immediately checked into our jewel of a boutique hotel, The Haymarket Hotel.

the room couldn't have been more perfect

I teared up when all the way across the pond we received champagne & strawberries 'happy' from my sweet parents

Then we headed out for a late lunch. After a weeks worth of crazy food in Spain, we went to the original Hard Rock Cafe for a good old fashioned hamburger & french fries!

Then we started walking around and exploring the town

Hamleys! a 6 story massive toy store!

we took this picture for Bennett... Buzz Lightyear made completely of Lego's!

Piccadilly Circus

Eros Statue

Christmas lights make me smile :)

this was in the store 'Cool Britannia' where you can buy all kinds of gimmicky British stuff

After dropping some purchases off at our hotel room (which was just moments away from everything we had just seen and were about to see... PERFECT LOCATION), we decided to take a walking tour of some more of the city. Very interestingly, it gets dark at 4:15 pm in London, but the fun did not stop when the sun went down.

I have to thank a new friend for helping me with planning our London trip. Crystal, whom I have actually never met but went to high school with her husband & sister in law, went to London last year & I saw all of her incredible pictures on her blog... She recommended Rick Steve's London guide book & we started out with the Westminster Walk (however, we walked it backwards... no not literally backwards, we just started at the final destination since it was next to our hotel, and ended up at the first stop in the book):

Trafalgar Square

St. Martin-in-the-Fields

National Gallery

the guidebook showed a picture of these "huggable lions dying to have their photo taken with you" but they were many many feet up... so I had to CLIMB (well, Ben had to hoist me up there, too!)

Then we walked down 'Whitehall'- basically London's version of Pennsylvania Avenue with all the government buildings & #10 Downing (where the Prime Minister lives)

By the Horse Guards that guard the first entrance to Buckingham Palace (but you couldn't actually see the Palace from here)

all the way to this beauty.... in case you didn't already know, 'Big Ben' is the name of the BELL inside the clock tower, so when you say that you saw 'Big Ben', you actually didn't! 

This was the moment that I said "I can't believe we are ACTUALLY HERE"

walking across the Thames River you could see the Parliament buildings too....

And we ended up at the London Eye... which we had been recommended numerous time to go on and see the beautiful views of the city....

But Ben HATES heights.... so I felt kinda guilty for that... he wouldn't look up, never moved, & was holding on for dear life but without the chance of falling

the views were beautiful from 443 feet in the air (well, at least from my vantage point they were... I'm pretty sure Ben would have rather not seen them from there)

We walked back along a Pedestrian bridge and grabbed a casual dinner before returning to our beautiful hotel, satisfied with all that we packed into our first day in London!