Wednesday 7 September 2011

Big Ben

Photo: Big Ben from below

Day 19: Streets of London

The Hotel: Royal National London at Russell Square is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve got no idea how many rooms it has, but there are probably about 200 rooms on our floor. We’re on the 6th of 7 floors. Breakfast was like feed time at a cattle feed lot. Very mass produced, very unfriendly and an experience that we can tolerate for two more days, but not happily.
After breakfast we caught the tube to the river and caught the ferry to Greenwich. Straight up to the observatory. This was one of the places I’d been looking forward to since reading the book ‘Longitude’ many years ago. The observatory didn’t disappoint – the highlight being John Harrison’s 4 clocks which solved the Longitude problem in the 1700’s.
Next was the National Maritime museum. Lach and I went in a Volvo round the world racing yacht simulator. Awesome! We then caught the ferry back to London and walked the streets for a few hours. Parlaiment building, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, National Galley (including some famous Monet, van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, Turner and lots of others we should probably know but don’t) and Buckingham Palace. From there we caught the open top bus which toured all over the city. Dinner at a pub in Whitehall, then a walk to Piccadilly Circus and tube back to Russell Square. Big day. Lots of famous sights to take in.

The Hotel: Free Wifi doesn't work! I'll add the photo when I have wifi that works.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the blogs, and a very happy birthday to you Coles have a great one xxx katrina

julie fraser said...

Enjoying reading your progress. Happy Birthday, you missed out on your chokie today at moning tea!

Anonymous said...

Wow this looks like a great holiday and excellent way to record it. Thank you for the link

Today is the 10th in Aussie land so have have fun on your Happy Birthday. Cheers sue RK