Tour of Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle & Last day in London

Ok, on Friday July 4 Charlie and I had to wake up really early (4:30) to get ready, eat breakfast and walk to the pick up point for the tour by 7:25. :( But it was totally worth it!!! We were dropped off at Victoria Station to wait for the coach and our particular tour guide and by 8 am we were off. On the way out of the city our guide, Clarissa, gave us a good historical background of Windsor Castle. We were there about 30-40 minutes after leaving London. Right before we got there, we got to see where the Magna Carta was signed (and thanks to my high school government class - i knew what that was :) ) Here are some of the pictures from our 2 hours at the castle.






(Pretty cool - I got to see the changing of the guard!!!)

Once we left the castle we headed towards Stonehenge, which is quite a drive from the castle - maybe 2 hours(ish). I napped for a bit and once again the tour guide was giving us the historical background for the ancient ruins. She was even nice enough to tell us some of the theories of its creation - its all really interesting, but in case any of you are bored by that type of stuff I won't write it all out - go look it up though if you like that kind of information. Its really fascinating!
Sadly we only had around 40 minutes there and it was really crowded from our tour and about 6 other tours, plus a school field trip with a bunch of 7-8 year-olds.





We raced out of there (leaving me no time to look at the gift shop :( ) and headed 15 minutes up the little two-lane road to a pub in a "town." The only entree they had for vegetarians was this cheesy cauliflower & broccoli "bake" that was actually really really good. We had some odd veggies on the side - mushy - but they were still healthy!! :)


Around the pub there were thatched roofed houses/buildings - it was really cool to see them and then hear how they're made.


We had an hour long trip through the rolling hills to Bath - again a city with TONS of history and theories of how it was founded. Its really interesting, especially adding all the myths about the natural hot springs that make up the Roman Baths (if you want to know more, look it up or just ask me!!!) I have to say that Bath is one of my favorite cities so far, even though we only got to drive through it and stop at the Roman Baths... its gorgeous! We drove my Nicolas Cage's home, which cost over 4.5 million pounds - so theres an idea of how nice it is there. The buildings are this gorgeous cream color that has happened as the stone ages.... beautiful!










By the time we left Bath I was exhausted and because we switched coaches to head back to London we didn't get our seats at the very front so I could see out. The person who ended up sitting behind me (another rude one) wouldn't allow me to lean my seat back and they had NO A/C on while driving on the windy roads. Sadly I get car sick so the 2 1/2 hour ride home was no fun, and on top of it they decided to turn the HEAT ON when we were in stop and go traffic getting back into the city. Because I felt like poo by the time they dropped us off I just got into my pjs and laid on the bed in our freezing hotel room. :) Charlie ordered nachos from room service and we were able to get some rest. I ended up watching Kill Bill just b/c I couldn't fall asleep. haha

Saturday the fifth was our last day in London :( We slept in quite a bit just to relax and not rush ourselves. We got our yummy breakfast from the hotel - fresh yogurt and fruit, plus a croissant - and then headed out. We walked through Kensington Gardens again, just because its fabulous...

(a friend we met in the park who ate right out of my hand!!! )


over the river into Hyde Park, and then past Buckingham Palace again towards Piccadilly. Of course I had to stop at the ice cream stand... oops?


It turned out to be Gay Pride day in London so the streets were all blocked off from traffic and were filled with people every direction you looked... it was pretty crazy and cool at the same time. They had a stage set up in Trafalgar Square with music and people talking, there were booths set up with information and everything...


Having never seen protesters be blocked off and be so angry before in my life I had to take a picture...

(This ladies and gentlemen are the 20 most ignorant people alive... and they wonder why nobody listens... psh)

Anywhoo after that excitement we roamed all over the city again - down to parliament with the intention of going into Westminster. Of course it had closed 20 minutes before we got there... :( Needless to say I was disappointed beyond words, that was at the top of my list of things to see and do in London so now I have something to look forward to on my next trip. We were going to go on the Eye but the lines were about 4 hours long and it was already 8 or so miles into our walk w/o lunch so we went to find food instead, taking pictures along the way across the Thames River.



We found a Thai restaurant and were suddenly VERY thankful for Table for Two - they didn't even have Thai Iced Tea... what the heck? After fighting the winning crowds we didn't get much shopping done all 3 H&Ms that we found were so packed we couldn't even walk in... ridiculous! Is Saturday national shopping day in London? We made it back to our area of the city by 7ish in the evening, got dinner and I proceeded to take a bubble bath while Charlie watched the tennis recaps. We had to get up early the next day anyways...

so i just spent most of the morning writing and uploading pictures to post a blog about our tour of stonehenge yesterday - then the internet went out and now i'm done trying to do it... i'll try again if I have time tonight before the internet access expires...

love you
go check out my myspace pics at least!

Seeing the city of London - July 3

Thursday July 3, 2008

Today was amazing! First of all, our hotel has weatabix for breakfast with fresh yogurt and fruit AND fresh croissants and jelly. J What a way to start the day! We headed out when the sun was out and it was quite warm – but by the time we got around the corner BAM, it was pouring down rain and windy with a bit of a chill. Thankfully we bought Charlie a rain coat/jacket in Dublin before we left and I have a cute umbrella from H&M… so we walked about a mile and a half up to the bus stop for the tour – which happens to be right in front of Harrods! (I’m making a stop there on Saturday… lol – just to look around, I swear!)We hopped on the “Big Bus Tour” and started our long journey around the city. We got seats on the top of the bus, but because it had been pouring rain just a few minutes before that, we got our butts soaking wet! :(


BUT we got a grand view of the city and the sites. We saw the home of the writer/creator of Peter Pan, and all of the major sites throughout the city… but because there are so many things to see and talk about I'm just going to show pictures and say what they are!

First on the list is the notable things, the original Burberry's :)


The next thing is Trafalgar Square


And of course the gorgeous and famous Big Ben and Parliament building


The London Eye


Then we got off at St. Paul's Cathedral (where Prince Charles married Lady Diana)



We had to climb to the very top... ridiculously high up there - but worth the leg pains

(Me 1/2 way up)

(Charlie looking down at all the sites and people walking around)

Tower Bridge

(we actually went over it later on)

Westminster Abbey!!!

(It started raining and are going in on Saturday to look around)

St. James Park

(Looking up at Buckingham Palace)

(another tasty treat for a midday break)

(Yep, my future home - haha, I wish... this is the palace ladies and gents)



As you can see the dark clouds were rolling in - so after this we headed back to our tour bus stop and headed back to the hotel. On our way we say this AWESOME sight!!!!!!!

wednesday - to london we go!

Wednesday July 2, 2008

Yesterday the first of July (Tuesday), Charlie and I decided to sleep in and be lazier in our expedition for the day. The last few weeks have been exhausting and going at the speed we had been going we were going to burn out. I got up around 8ish having fallen asleep relatively early and I took advantage of the free Internet access in our apartment, I answered and messaged people on myspace, xanga and facebook as well as buying our tickets to London. When Charlie got up he went exploring around the area trying to find me a hair dryer (an essential item for a girl with hair like mine) and came back with packaged egg sandwiches (which is what we’ve had to eat almost everyday over here, they’re veggie so yay!). We left around 11ish and walked around the city. We TRIED to find an electronic store that had the battery that we needed – but with NO luck! They have the cameras, just no extra batteries… what the heck? Hopefully we’ll have more luck here in London. We randomly found a building with my Icelandic flag hanging out in front of it, it turned out to be the consulate there in Edinburgh. So weird…but very awesome at the same time!

We made our way to Edinburgh castle, which is absolutely gorgeous! There was a park at the base of it, so Charlie and I took advantage of the natural beauty of the place and the peaceful atmosphere and just sat on the grass for about 40 minutes. Its SO different here than back home – I like it here more!



We walked down to the fountain and the snack stands, where they had yummy ice cream (that tasted a lot like cool whip! Haha yum!) After that we went up the side of the castle to the entrance near the Royal Mile, browsed the souvenir shop and the tartan factory for a while. We didn’t feel like paying 15 pounds per person to get into the castle so we just went through the gate, looked around and then left. Because it is technically a palace, they have the royal guards out there; this was my first time seeing them in person so that was pretty nifty. (Yes, I say nifty) On the way down the Royal Mile to head over to Nicolson Street, there was a street entertainer from Austrailia – who was pretty funny. After watching him for a while we left – being totally exhausted from walking around the city – and finally got to Buffet King. Buffet King is a corner “shop” area that has a Chinese restaurant on the top floor and a coffee shop on the bottom! This is where one of my favoritest people, J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone! Yep, I’m a dork – but if you haven’t read it, you have no idea how truly amazing the books are! Totally worth walking uphill a few miles to see where she created this magical world, so that was the highlight of my day. We promptly turned around and went back to our hotel, the walk back (all downhill) is much nicer, but my feet were still pretty much DEAD. L Across the street from our apartment there on Broughton Road, there was a little pizza and sandwich “café” where we picked up a pizza. Randomly they have the option to put corn, asparagus and other odd toppings. But they had great food and the garlic cheese bread was awesome! (We were allowed greasy carbs – we walked all over the city with only half a sandwich and banana to eat all day!) Thankfully my husband is awesome and we were able to sit in our pjs, eating our delicious comfort food and watch our Sex and the City dvds… sums up to be an awesome relaxing night!

Thursday July 3, 2008
Today we had to get up early, pack up our stuff and head out by 9 am to get to the train station (about a mile walk, uphill). About 3/4 way to the station we decided to call a cab rather than kill ourselves and be too exhausted to enjoy the trip. When I bought the tickets yesterday they were running a special that the first class tickets were the same price as the 2nd class – so I thought why not? I surprised Charlie by telling this when we got to the platform, it turned out to be an excellent choice of purchase.

The train ride was going to be 4 1/2 hours long so I grabbed fruit packages from a little market there in the station. The train itself was very comfortable! We were able to enjoy cups of tea or coffee the entire way down to London as well as delightful cookie-like biscuit treats.

The countryside here is amazing, I know I keep saying that but it really is – and I feel like I need to take pictures of everything I see just so I don’t forget any of it! We arrived in London a little before 3:00 pm. Now if you know me even a little bit, you know that I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan and with ending our journey at King’s Cross Station – where would I head??? Yep Platform 9 3/4 (for you non-Harry Potter fans, it doesn’t exist but it does in Harry Potter’s world!) I was beyond devastated to find out that you have to have a ticket for that area of the station to get to the platforms, Iwas so very sad – hopefully someday I’ll get to see it? After that we headed down into the underground part of the station, which was a pain in the butt when you have heavy backpacks on your back that weigh too much and are in a crowd of pushy people. Lol I decided that I don’t like the tube – its too crowded with no air circulation… and its too bumpy – for someone who gets motion sick, its no bueno. Checking into our hotel went well, we’re staying at a holiday inn right off the underground, which is convenient. Tonight, we headed out to Kensington Gardens.


I’m in love with it there! Its so peaceful and gorgeous… why doesn’t Riverside have parks like this for all of us who live there? Charlie and I sat in front of the Prince Albert monument for almost an hour, just talking and relaxing.

We ate at a little Italian place down the street from our hotel… I’ve been craving spaghetti, randomly!

So ya, tomorrow we’re heading out in the morning to get on that famous double-decker bus to tour the city and see the sites!