Back from our trip to London. . . Had a wonderful time and loved every minute of our trip. We left on Saturday, February 13th. Steve and the kids flew out in the morning and Karen & I flew out in the afternoon. We arrived just 2 hours after Steve and the kids. Then the adventure started.

• Trying to figure what tickets we needed to ride the underground to the hotel.


• Getting ourselves and our luggage down to the underground and then getting on the tube.


• Checked in to our hotel in Maida Vale and the kids zonked out, so Steve, Karen & I went for a walk around the neighborhood looking at the beautiful homes in the area.


• We walked and walked and walked some more.. plenty of exercise every day.. at least 5 miles I swear, many days much more..


• We had rain and more rain, but we also had several sunny COLD days it was 32 degrees and colder.

The first morning we "walked" to the center of town to the Marble Arch to board the double decker tour bus for our overview of London.

• Visited all the traditional sites:


• Trafalgar Square


• The National Gallery


• Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard


• Rode the red double decker buses and toured the city


• Boat cruise on the Thames River


• Rode the train to Windsor and spent the day in the cute little town & at Windsor Castle. The Queen was in residence when we were there, but didn't see her.


• Saint Paul's Cathedral: attended Ash Weds. services here and the interior was amazing. When the organ music played it took my breath away.


• The Tower of London and the crown jewels & armor and shields and so many artifacts to see here. We had to come back a second day to see it all.

The Tower of London..Raining one day and cold and sunny the next.

• Camden Garden's huge outdoor market, hundreds of booths selling everything.


• Notting Hill.. I found the store from the movie.. it is now a shoe store not a book store..and found the door to the flat that Hugh Grant lived in..


• We got to go to "Lion King" the musical. This was high on my list of things to do.
  
• Westminster Abby: Attended Sunday evening services here


• Paddington, Piccadilly Circus,


• Harrods Department store


• Abby Road & the Beatles's recording studio location


• Shakespeare's Globe theater


• Kensington Palace.. where Charles and Diana lived. Now Charles and Camilla live here.
• Ate fish & chips at Sherlock Holmes pub, and several others as well.. great fun


• Walked Hyde park


• Princess Diana's memorial


• Discovered several little places to eat that we frequented often.


• Learned the many underground routes and how to change trains to get anywhere we wanted to go.

So you can tell we were very busy each day, we left the hotel early and didn't return until late. We returned home the evening of the 22nd.

Then on the 24th my sister Judy arrived for her sister visit for 10 days. We have been having a fun time with movies, shopping, eating out and just relaxing. Will fill you in on our activities next blog entry.