UNITED KINGDOM - DAY 16

Walked down to the bus stop to wait for the Hop On Hop Off bus again. We want to put a warning out there for anyone going to London. Don't use the Golden Tour Company. You have to wait up to an hour for the buses to come. In that time the Original Tour Company and The Big Bus Tour have had 5 to 6 buses come around.

After we finally made it to the Tower Bridge we climbed aboard the lift and ascended to the walkways across the top. Once there we watched a short film about the construction of the bridge before walking across the walkways above the traffic. The view was great. They also had lots of information about different types of bridges along one walkway. Then on the other walkway they had quirky pictures and phrases about London. We then headed down to follow the blue line which took us into the museum showing the original machines that raised and lowered the bridge. It was fascinating. It's really amazing to think that the techniques used to raise and lower the bridge back 200 years is basically exactly the same as today. Very little has changed. Were the people who designed all these wonderful structures ahead of their time or have we reached our pinnacle of knowledge regarding certain concepts.

After the Tower Bridge we headed to the HMS Belfast a cruiser that had a distinguished career in the British Navy before being decommissioned and was turned into a museum. It was great. The girls got to see what the conditions were like for people who lived on the ship and learnt about the different jobs on the ship. They got to climb up and down through the hatches from the boiler room up to the sick bay, to the mess and sleeping quarters up to the guns on deck. We were about to head up to the bridge when an alarm was sounded and we were informed that everybody including staff and crew needed to vacate the boat immediately. We made our way slowly off the ship and headed into the shop to find out what was going on. We're still not sure, but think that a fire alarm went off in the restaurant kitchen and they needed to vacate the ship as a safety precaution. They did offer us to come back another day but we declined.

We headed to the bus stop and waited forever in the hot sun (yes the hot sun, in England) for the bus. It finally arrived and we climbed aboard only to find out that we had to change buses two stops away. We did so reluctantly and waited some more for the next bus to come.

We then headed to the British Museum and saw the rosette stone. We never realised that it was so big. The hieroglyphics were tiny. We then wanted to see the oldest chessboard in the world. We wandered around for only a short time before we were kicked out as the museum was closing. We walked back to the hotel after another long day of walking.