On September 24, Caleb and I headed to the airport to catch a red-eye flight to London! This was the first trip to Europe for both of us, and we some how survived the packed flight and the over night journey to arrive at Heathrow around noon in England.
The first thing we did was get on the Tube and head into Central London. We decided not to take the Express train to save the costs, but about half way there, we were regretting that because there was a delay on the train tracks and we sat for an extra 30 minutes. We were both quite relieved to make it to our hotel, St Ermins, in central London. It was a very fancy old building, and a great location. The room was small, but comfortable. We dropped off our suitcases and headed out to explore.
The hotel was right across the street from New Scotland Yard. We didn't see much criminal action, thank goodness.
Our first stop was Westminster Abbey, just a block and a half from the hotel. We came around the corner, into a suddenly very busy part of town and soon realized what a huge and crowded city London is. Westminster was beautiful and amazing to see, though our timing was always a bit off and we weren't able to go inside, due to it closing early that weekend for special services.
The side of Westminster Abbey.
This was part of the offices and living quarters that make up the large square of buildings around Westminster. We happened to be walking by as someone important was leaving, and a crowd had gathered to watch. We were just clueless tourists and had no idea who it was.
We turned the corner to run right into Big Ben and the Parliament Building. There was a huge roundabout by a small square to filter all of the traffic, so we got our first glimpse of the many red double deckers and the black cabs... and our first chances to try and cross the street with the traffic coming from a direction we weren't used to. We made it through unscathed.
Seeing this really made us feel like we had arrived in England!
The River Thames was one of my favorite things, as it is such a huge part of the London landscape. The Parliament Building was both massive and very ornate.
We headed across the River toward the London Eye to try and locate a few major sites on that side of the river. We quickly realized that we didn't want to stand in the lines to ride the London Eye on the first day, since were were anxious to get a feel for the city and try and discover a few more things for our weekend.
After what turned out to be some very extensive wandering, done the Thames, past Trafalgar Square, near Charring Cross and down some random side streets, we came across an Ethiopian food place that we had read some great reviews about. By this time, we were both anxious to sit for a few minutes and were actually super hungry. The place was tiny and we squeezed onto some stools at the small bar, but The food was amazing. An interesting combination of flavors that we both loved. It was a great start to the international flavors that we would consume while in London.
We turned our wandering in the direction of the English Portrait Gallery, with the idea of escaping the large crowds for a few minutes. It turns out that we don't know that much about English historical figures and while the portraits were interesting, they weren't enough to keep us awake after only a few hours of sleep on the plane. We headed back into the excitement and cruised Picadilly Circus on foot. The set up for a weekend festival was going on and there was plenty to see.
We then decided that since we didn't plan to take a tour of Buckingham Palace this trip, that we might as well walk to it and take a look. Turns out it was a lot farther than we thought, and we were a lot more tired than we thought. It seemed like a very long walk, but we made it.
These gilded gates lead to Green Park next to the palace.
The palace was a pretty amazing structure, but without a tour, there is not getting close to it, since it is still someone's home and office. We did wander a little and take a look. And we used the zoom lens to get a closer glimpse of the very well armed guards. In London there were actually quite a few places that we came across with guards and military personnel carrying large weapons. No wandering into places you shouldn't by accident.
This view with Caleb and the Palace gates give a better idea of how far we really were from the guard stations.
Our tired legs made us decide to head back to our hotel at this point, and we ended the night with a beautiful walk through Saint James Park.
It had a great view of the palace from a picturesque bridge.
The flowers and plants that were still growing at the end of September were a wonderful surprise.
Caleb was done with photos for the day, but did agree for one more pose near the Horse Guard. It was an old and forbidding structure for just being a place to house the horses and guards. 10 Baker Street was also near this building, but so heavily guarded by a huge fence and wires that we just had to imagine that we saw it.
That ended our first day in London, and we were quite happy to head back to the hotel and crash by 8:30pm. It was amazing how just traveling made us so tired.
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