We have 3 nights and 2 full days booked in London, which means, hearty English Breakfasts, and that makes a happy me. Our hotel is in a great location, a block from the bus stop and adjacent to Hyde Park. Yesterday, when we got in we took a walk to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. It is very peaceful, and even though I‘ve seen pictures, it was not what I expected. The very cold water runs around a granite circle for everybody to walk in. No bathing suits needed for the kids, they just lose their shoes and pants and cruise around in their underwear. Hyde Park is an amazing place to enjoy with your family.
Our tour around London and Westminster is on a very obvious tourist double decker bus. We have headphones to listen to the commentary, which is very helpful. However, you can only listen to the music of old royal London for so long, if they played Hail to the Chief one more time……
Our first stop is a bathroom break at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We see Van Gogh and Monet paintings. Sunflowers is one of them. It’s very true that you just can’t reproduce these paintings without losing something. They are beautiful and the colors are amazing.
We set out on a river cruise on the Thames, and to catch it we stop at the Tower of London. It’s nice to see the sites from the river. The very witty guide, has a very dry humor, and with the accent, he is so funny.
Next a free ghost tour is on the agenda, and I’m so very excited to roam the streets of London hearing about all the scary things that have happened here. Plus we get taken to a pub along the way. The ghost tour is so fun. We have a young Scottish tour guide who claims to be scared of her own shadow and because of her accent and fear, everything becomes more dramatic. We hear about remains found under houses, a lady of the night who was murdered and then dismembered along the street, and then of course Sweeney Todd’s barber shop. CREEPY. It’s damp out and dusk is coming. Seriously, it doesn’t get better than that to take a ghost tour.
After our stop at the pub, the oldest in London, we head to a cemetery, and a building that holds all the sinners within the church who need to be punished. They are placed into small cubbies that they squat in, or get an upgraded sentence in the courtyard behind iron bars. And then, when they finally die, they get a coveted spot under the courtyard that we are walking over. What amazes me, is that while we are standing there listening to the horrid stories, there are people walking through to get to where they are going. A woman, alone……I mean it’s dark……if we weren’t there, there would be very few people, and she’s walking alone….if that were me…..I’d be running like a crazy person.
We have dinner at a pub that our guide drops us at, which has a few basement floors, and we eat in the middle one.
NEXT DAY
When we bought our bus ticket yesterday, we had the option to take it for 48 hours instead of 24 for 5euro more. We thought we wouldn’t need it, we would take public transport. Now, common sense would say that a day on public transport would cost us more than 5 euro each, plus having to figure out where to stop is a pain, so logically, it would have made more sense to take the extra day, but no. So here we are the next day with only about an hour left on our 24 hr ticket, and no transportation for the rest of the day. What we quickly become aware of is that today’s tickets are the same color as yesterdays, and the driver isn’t really checking them. We get on before our time expires, and make the executive decision to try and get on again later.
The time comes to get on the bus “illegally” and the air is thick with tension. Our plan is to distract the driver with the wheelchair, and get on quickly before he notices. Within minutes we are all back on the second level of the bus happily enjoying our free ride back to our hotel. Oh the things we do that are so wrong, but really feel right.
Clearly Carla 
Love the scarf and cardigan;)
French fries AND peas?