A good nights sleep, no doubt made easier by the couple of pints over dinner last night, and the fact we were both very jet lagged.

Down for a full English breakfast to get us fueled up for a big day of sightseeing. We had decided to take one of the tourist buses to get us around and chose Big Bus as we had used them in a couple of other trips. The bus took us from outside the Ritz Hotel showing us a number of the sights through to the Tower of London.

As can be seen the caps have joined us on the bus and we can only gather they are enjoying the ride so far. As we journeyed round on the bus we saw the BT tower, once the tallest structure in London and home to an observation deck and revolving restaurant, whilst other towers have copied this unfortunately this tower was closed in the very early 70's due to the threat of the IRA. The views from the tower have now been overtaken by those from the Shard.

We then passed the Liberty and Hamleys stores both of which we will try and visit tomorrow, coming to Trafalgar square, home to Nelsons column which has [ 4 lions at its base, these have an interesting story as the sculptor had never actually seen a lion and used his dog as a basis for sculpting the hind quarters. The square is also home to a number of Yoda living statures, it was also famous for its pigeons which are no longer due to the immense cost of clearing up after them, they are now frightened off each morning by a falcon.

As we progressed down Whitehall amongst all monuments we noticed the monument to Women in War which neither of us were aware of before. The pub is the Red Lion, the name of which is the most common of pub names in the UK, this one claims to have Charles Dickens as one of its most famous patrons.

The monument to the Great Fire of London was soon passed, this is especially important today as today is 350 years since the Great Fire started in Pudding Lane.

Crossing the Thames on London Bridge we saw downriver Tower Bridge which we would cross shortly, in the foreground can be seen HMS Belfast and alongside a cruise ship which would be the cause of a 1/2 hour delay on our bus journey as Tower Bridge was opened to allow it pass through between our crossing London Bridge and getting to Tower Bridge.

As we were about to cross Tower Bridge we caught sight of the 3 named skyscrapers of the London skyline, from L to R the walkie talkie, the cheese grater and the gherkin.

As part of our ticket we could take a river cruise from the Tower of London to Westminster, the caps of course joined us for this and appeared to fit right in. By cruising up river we could see the Globe theatre which is a replica of the original where Shakespeare amongst others would have their works performed. The building of the replica required an act of parliament to be granted as it has a thatched roof, and ever since the Great Fire thatched roofs have been banned in London.

We were fortunate to see the models of the city being constructed ready for the 350yr commemorations which will take place on Sunday which we will miss, these wonderful models of London at the time of the fire will be set alight then.

Lastly on the tour we came past the Elizabeth tower, many call this Big Ben however as we know this is the name of the main bell within the tower, not the tower itself.

In the evening we went to the Duchess Theatre where on the recommendation of friends we watched "the play that goes wrong", this was outstanding, with both of us suffering from laughing too much.