A Friday Novel

Back at our hotel to give our feet a break and sort through some photos. Not even 6pm yet and we’ve walked around 20k steps so far today. The fitness apps on our watches are very happy with how much we’re walking….our feet on the other hand, less thrilled! Was worth it for all the sights we have seen so far though.

Both yesterday and today we have walked through a portion of Hyde Park and for being in the middle of such a big city, it is very relaxing and pretty to walk through. The large trees make for some beautiful, shaded paths for this unusual sunny London weather.

Oh and some cute sleepy ducks as well!

Continuing on our stroll we walked past Buckingham Palace which I had previously posted about.

After snapping a few photos, we continued on and stumbled upon some sort of rehearsal that we cannot identify even after sitting down to google it. But it involved a several groups of guards, some with instruments playing music, marching down to the Horse Guards Parade Ground.

While we’re still not sure what exactly we watched, it was cool to see while waiting for the time slot for our tickets at the Churchhill War rooms. While I didn’t take any pictures inside, it was very interesting. They provide an audio guide for you to listen to on headphones as you walk through, with the chapter you’re listening to corresponding with what you’re looking at and what room you’re in.

After a quick stop for some Japanese food for lunch, we went over to Westminster Abbey which had a similar style audio guided tour that provided additional context and history for what you were looking at. The elaborateness (if that wasn’t a word before….it is now!) of everything was amazing. The age of the building as well is crazy. While the original church was finished in 1060, it was later rebuilt starting in 1245 which was the beginning of the building we visited today.

Afterwards we took a walk across Westminster bridge and got some pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. While I’ve seen plenty of pictures, they truly don’t capture how tall Big Ben is when you’re walking past it! A fun fact of the day - while most people typically refer to the tower as Big Ben, the tower itself is called the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the tower.

While the next stop on our plan was going to be the London Eye, we decided to skip this stop due to the long lines combined with our feet already starting to feel the miles and not looking forward to waiting in line. Instead we hopped on the tube of the first time today since we’d been walking everywhere, and head to the British Museum, where I’m convinced it would take you days to look at and read everything on display. I, of course, had to make sure I took a picture of the remains of a horse statue!

After a seeing as much as we responsibly could, it was back on the tube to our hotel to relax while deciding what we want to grab for dinner. However, that decision making process isn’t quite going to plan as Joel fell asleep while I was writing this post. Guess I better wake him up so we can get some food! Hope you enjoyed my mini novel of today’s adventures!