Tueday April 7th-- 8th Wedding Anniversary

Tuesday April 7th For starters today is our 8th wedding anniversary. We woke with just enough time to have some of that wonderful toast downstairs. I also managed to pack all our suitcases before we headed for our tour. We had a few things planned for today before we met up with Dori and family late in day. It turned out to be our coldest day in London. The sun was shining, but the wind was howling. It was probably just about 50ish F with the wind. We bundled up the best we could with the clothing we had bought with us and headed out. (Unfortunately Sophie had lost one of her mittens in Paris). Stop number one was Westminster Abbey, first coronation 1066. I had purchased the London Pass tickets, these tickets included admission to over 50 different places. I had thought that the Abbey was one of them, I was wrong. The line was quite long,and it was quite expensive, so we just walked around a bit and headed towards the river. There was a monument to the Armed Services that I wanted to photograph so headed to that. On the way there, we passed the little park next to Westminster Abbey, where the Churchill statue is. There was some sort of demonstration against the war in Iran going on. The park was full of police officers and police cars surrounded the park. We walked down along the Thames I took my pictures of the monument. We than looked for the nearest tube station to head over to The Tower. Once we got to The Tower, I realized that our London pass covered this site, we where able to skip the ticket purchase line, and go straight to the gate line. This moved quite fast, well if you consider 20 minutes fast. Once through the gate the crowd dispersed some, we decided not to take the Yeomen Warders tour, since there were about 100 people per guide. We walked around the grounds took a tour of a military museum on the grounds. It was nothing very exciting, but since you had to pay extra, it was pretty quiet. It did however show some of the Queens dinner ware, it was exciting to find out that my mom has the same pattern, minus the Queens stamp in the middle of the plates. The ones that mom has is actually Zsolnay from Hungary. The whole Tower area was packed as everything else we had seen in London and Paris. From the museum we headed over to see something I really did not want to miss. It was the "Henry VIII Dressed to Kill" exhibit. It showed all the different suites of armor that he/they wore back in the days of Knights. It was quite impressive, what fascinated me even more, was once again the building in which it was held. All the things that happened behind those walls. Who sat there, who visited there. How cool. Sophie was thrilled to learn that Henry VIII died on January 28th, her birthday. We did not see the torture tower, the jewels, or the prison, or much more of The Tower. (I had actually seen these on my first visit with Raeanne and Duncan in 2000.) We ended our visit to The Tower and moved on to The Tower Bridge. This was also included in our pass price. It was an amazing day to get some pictures of Tower Bridge, the clouds and sun ratio was just right. There really was no line go up to the top of the bridge. Hard to believe. It was nice, interesting to walk across the span of the bridge and see the sights from up there. We snapped some more pictures and than walked back to see the engine room of the bridge. That was quite interesting to see how they opened the bridge in the old days. They used coal furnaces that would produce steam connected to pulley's and the bridge would open like that. By now we where all cold and miserable. Sophie had woken with a mild temp and felt awful. This was only day that she ever complained and said she was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel to lay down. Well being the good parents we are, we bribed her to the best of our ability. She made out like a bandit wit toys and such. It was again time for lunch so headed back to Victoria Station for one last time, to get some good old English cooking at McDonald's. (ha ha) We also stopped along the way to pick up some ibuprofen, this time for Sophie. She took that ate lunch and was feeling much better. Ready to continue with the "tour." We still had a little time before it was time to meet up Dori, so we went to check a few more things off the list. We headed over towards Buckingham Palace, since we had not taken good pictures of the guards on our earlier visit. After that we went to see the Royal Mews. It is where they first Mewed the Royal Falcons. Than eventually they put the Royal carriages and cars there. This again was included in the Pass. The line was not very long, but seemed to move quite slowly. Once through the gate, we where actually in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Kind of cool, too bad we could not have tea with the Queen. We however did use her "WC" (water closet) it was quite nice, also it was warm in the building. The carriages where really interesting to see. I was amazed that they let us get that close. There was one carriage in particular that was amazing. I don't recall which King had it commissioned, but it was made of solid gold. (I also don't know if it was the real thing or just a replica of it... to expensive to leave out like that.) Even the wheels were made of gold. Come to think of it, kind of frivolous spending if you ask me. It was an interesting visit. Something I never would have thought would have interested me. But it did. We did stop at the gift shop to buy Sophie "just one toy..." I bought my sister some English Lavender soap and myself a wind/rain jacket with Buckingham Palace and the Queen's crown in gold embroidery. It came in handy, I was quite cold by now. Next on the list was The Queen's Gallery, also included in the Pass. (Most people I chatted with stated the Pass was a rip-off, but we managed to save quite a bit of money with it just this one day, again, worth it to us. Use your own judgement.) The Queen's Gallery was also quite lavish. It made me feel kind of "Royal" being able to go into the Palace (ok, so it was only one wing of the place). The walls where all painted a nice deep rich color green, burgundy, dk blue. As we entered the Gallery, we had to turn off our cell phones, and we where running late already, but had to go finish the Gallery. So of course we had missed Dori's phone call. We saw all the things that were on Sophie's treasure hunt sheet and a few other rooms full of some very ornate furniture and fixtures and paintings. Than of course one more stop at the gift store. I have to give Sophie credit, she was always beaming at the Swarovski crystal, and the bling bling stuff. She even went as far as stating that Swarovski was her favorite store. I think we opted for some colored pencils and that was it. We headed back to the hotel to drop our loot and than out again to Hyde Park to meet up with Dori and family. I felt bad since we were about an hour late for our last meeting with Dori. We finally found the spot, which happened to be the Peter Pan Statue in Hyde Park. The girls ran around a bit, watched the ducks and than we headed for the playground. Easier said than done. We walked all over Hyde Park sort of following the Princess Diana Memorial Walk. We made it to the far end to a small museum of sorts, which of course was closed. We than headed back up the other side of the Park to the playground nearest Lancaster Gate. The girls played and we did some final chatting, the hubbies where busy trading camera tips. It turned out to be a wonderful end to a long and exhausting trip. If only it would have been warmer, it would have been 100% perfect. This way it was only 98%. But some things we just can't control. We said our sad goodbyes and we headed to the underground at Lancaster Gate and Dori, Zsolt, Bori and Kami headed up the street to their hotel. We stopped at the local Tesco to pick up something for dinner and than headed back to the hotel for our last night there.