After another five hour flight, we landed in London. The skies are overcast with a little rain. The breakfast on American Airlines consisted of fig newtons and wheat thins with an awful peanut butter tasting substance that contained no peanuts. The seats on the American Airlines 777 were comfortable although we did not have the individual seatback t.v. monitors that we were expecting on such long flights. Instead of having individual monitors in the seatbacks, we had the over the aisle monitors and the movies shown were Seabiscuit and the Lovebug remake, neither of which we were interested in. Upon landing at Heathrow airport, we had to wait ten minutes or so on the tarmac. Sylvan felt kind of ill at that point from the long flight and the imitation peanut butter for breakfast.

We got our luggage, & got directions to the subway “tube.” We purchased a one day subway pass and took the blue line(Piccadilly Circus line) to Gloucester Road station. The Hotel Montana was half a block from the station. The elevator had only room for two people but we had read about hotels in Europe having very small elevators and so we were not entirely surprised but it would have been a problem for people with more luggage. Room 405 had two twin beds which were small for two guys over six feet tall. With the windows open, the room was very noisy since it faced Gloucester Road which is a very busy road. The windows were double paned windows but there was no air conditioning so that closing the window was not an option as it had become pretty warm. With the windows open, the room was very noisy since it faced Gloucester Road which is a very busy road.

We had dinner at “Garfunkels,” a London chain, sit down restaurant, across the street from the hotel.

After dinner we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus which was a little like Times Square in New York with lots of neon and crowds of people. We walked up to Leicester Square. This area has a lot of restaurants, theaters and throngs of people. I think that London must have more live theater than New York.

We walked over to Old Compton St. to check out the “gay” district. We walked by a couple of bars but did not go in anywhere. We were more curious than anything but too exhausted and jet lagged to do much of anything. We took the subway back to Gloucester Rd. and stopped by this convenience store called Tesco which is a chain kind of like 7-11 in London and bought some snacks and went back to the room

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On the tour we went by 10 Downing Street which is where the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has his offices

…and on the tour we saw “modern London.” You don’t see a lot of high-rises in London and I asked the tour guide if there was a “height limitation” but he said the reason that you don’t see many high-rises is that the ground is made of clay and doesn’t support highrises very well. We did see a few on the tour though. The bullet shaped building on the right is called 30 St. Mary Axe but also sometimes called Gherkin or the Erotic Gherkin.

We went by Trafalger Square laid out in 1829 to 1841 to commemorate Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

…and the Marble Arch which was designed by John Nash in 1828.

We got off the tour at the Westminster Abbey/Parliament/Big Ben stop.

We asked a passerby to take our picture in front of Parliament and Big Ben.

Then we walked across the street to see Westminster Abbey. The church is huge and amazing. We are not including all the history here on the sites we saw but it was all very interesting. I am going to try to provide links to some of the sites for anyone that wants a little more information.

Westminster Abbey was built between the 13th to 16th centuries A.D.and various kings and queens are entombed here. There is a slight admission charge.

The inside of the church is really beautiful but they don’t allow you to take pictures… but I did take one before I knew I wasn’t supposed to. It is impossible to capture the immensity of it in a picture anyway. We spent an hour or so looking through this very interesting place.

After resting some, Sylvan felt better. We took the tube to Westminster Station to ride the London Eye. The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel with glass pods big enough for eight people to stand and slowly go around in. You get great views of the city from it. We took it after five in the evening and did not have to wait in a long line.

This is a picture of Sylvan inside the pod we were in on the London Eye. By this time it was getting dark. You can see Parliament in the background.

A picture of Parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye.

While we had been out, we had passed the Park International Hotel about two blocks away and saw a sign that they had air conditioning. We asked to look at a room there and liked it much better than the Montana and so we canceled our reservation at the Montana for the end of our trip and booked a room at the Park International in the internet and got a better room for less money.

The rest of the London pics on this page are out of sequence. I am keeping all the London pics on one page but everything from here down was actually during the last three days of our trip.

Upon our return to London from Athens, we landed at Gatwick airport which seems much smaller than Heathrow. We got a day pass that allowed us to ride the regular train into London and which was also good for the subway system. There is also an express train available but on this trip, we just took the regular one to Victoria Station and then the subway to Gloucester Square..

This was our room at the Park International. Although the floors were creaky and the carpet needed replacing, for London, this was a great place to stay. It was only two blocks from where the Montana hotel was and it cost less to stay there when booked on the internet. We would absolutely recommend this over the Montana. It had air conditioning, an elevator that more than two people could ride at the same time, a great breakfast and…

It was still a “European” hotel though and still probably not up to the standards many Americans would expect for the amount of money it cost. (Milton and I often book rooms through Priceline.com when we travel in the states and get some pretty good deals..i.e. The Grand Hyatt next to Grand Central Station in Manhatten for only $99.00- we love a bargain!).

There was a huge modern highrise Holiday Inn about a half a block away from the Park International which I would imagine would be closer to most American hotels but I believe it also cost quite a bit more. The Park Hotel was perfect for our budget.

As we were getting ready that morning, we were also watching C.N.N. and keeping track of what was going on with Hurricane Rita.

We went down to breakfast of all you could eat toast, a choice of pastries, coffee, OJ, cereal, ham, cheese, etc. .

After breakfast we walked down to Gloucester Square and purchased our one day travel cards and took the tube to the Victoria station stop. I got a picture of Milton in a London phonebooth.

We walked from Victoria station to Buckingham Palace.

It was a little early for the changing of the guard so we walked up the road along St. James Park to see the lake in the park and to take a few pictures.

Here’s one with the zoom across the lake…

… and one without… I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. It is a very pretty setting.

Sylvan had read that the best view for the changing of the guard was from Victoria Monument. As you are facing Buckingham Palace, you want to be on the LEFT side of the monument.

We were standing around for thirty minutes or so when we heard the band coming up the street. From where we were standing, we could see the band coming up the street.

There was a huge crowd but we did have a good view of the entering and exiting of the Palace gates.

It was all very exciting.

From Buckingham Palace we walked to the Westminster station. They were preparing for the September 24th international protest against the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq, which we knew was also taking place that same day in San Francisco, New York, Paris and elsewhere.

We then took a train from Westminster to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We had been here on the tour at the beginning of our trip but this time we paid the admission fee and looked around inside. Although it is impressive, we had by this time been to St. Peter’s at the Vatican, San Marcus in Venice and the Duomo in Florence. It is hard to compare to those. I have included a link to the church’s website if you want more information though. We were getting hungry by this time and although there was a cafeteria in the basement next to the crypt, we decided to eat elsewhere.

After we left St. Paul’s, we took the tube to Covent Garden and had fish and chips at Rock and Sole, a place recommended by our “London Top Ten” book. It came to $41.00 for a couple pieces of fried cod with some steak fries, sides of cole slaw and a couple sodas, but by this time we were more used to European food prices. It was tasty fish and chips. In San Francisco you can get comparable or maybe even better on Larkin street… can’t think of the name of the place right now.. but when in London…

We had read that the British Museum “grand court” was open until 11pm and were not sure what a “grand court” was but thought we would check it out since we wanted to go to the museum anyway. We set out for the nearest tube station which was Russel Square. It took us a while to find the museum but we enjoyed the search since it just gave us an opportunity to see another area of London.

We got up around 9:30am and had another great breakfast at the hotel. Sylvan went to Gloucester Rd and Cromwell to the souvenir/post office to buy some postcards and souvenirs. We then took the tube to Tower Hill station and bought our tickets for the Tower of London. We had read that we should get there at 10am when it opens and then should go directly to see the crown jewels before a que forms. We did that and were among the first in to see the jewels and were able to take our time. Then we went back to the entrance where the actual tour would begin. The Tower of London is 900 years old.

Here is a picture of our “yeoman” or tour guide. He was humorous and interesting.

One of the eight Raven’s with clipped wings that are kept at the Tower (there is a whole story that goes along with the Raven’s). I thought this one was going to attack us. He came running toward us and then jumped up on the fence in front of us and I snapped this picture… then he went past us and away… I think I heard him say “nevermore…”

More pics of the Tower.

And another…

Traitors gate…

A display of medieval armor

Milton inside the Tower of London walls.

They had several rooms of Egyptian mummies.

We saw the Rosetta stone which was a discovery that lead to the ability to read hieroglyphics. I thought it was interesting that the first word that was deciphered was the sound a cat makes: meow.

There were many treasures from Egypt.

I am not sure how the Egyptians feel about the British taking so many of their treasures.

There was an entire Greek temple in the museum. It was really incredible that the British had dismantled this entire temple and brought it back to London.

We had read about how the Greeks felt about the Elgin marbles that were taken from the Acropolis in Athens. They want them back. We also read that the Greeks had been allowing them to get destroyed though and some would say that Elgin rescued the marbles. This is only one segment in a huge room lined with these.

More Greek artifacts that the British took from Greece. We did not have time to see it all of course. There are many place in the world you can go and run out of interesting things to see or do but London is not one of them (or Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome or Athens for that matter).

Coming out at the Picadilly station, I liked the look of this street… it seemed so typical London…

Here is my last look at Picadilly.

We both slept pretty well but were awakened by the creaking of the floor above us. It sounded like the guest above us was pacing. Although we had asked for a 7:30 am wakeup call, we were already awake by 7. We finished packing, took our showers, and went down and had breakfast.