Yesterday we left at 11am and headed over to London, took about 6 hours on the M25 and M4. Managed to get through nearly all the roundabouts this time without a repeat exit strategy!
After booking in at the hotel we went for a walk down the road and found a nice fish shop and had plaice and chips and salad for tea.
Today, Friday, headed off at 8am to Eastcote station and into London. Had to go to Picadilly Circus station to get our train pass exchanged for tickets.
Walked over to Trafalgar Square. That was great to see and huge crowds of tourists everywhere. There is a distinct lack of pigeons there now. Due to the daily arrival of four special visitors each day they have gone missing... The visitors are Hawks. Certainly done the job.
Next stop was the London Eye. Again huge crowds but it was only about 30 mins in the queue. There are about 30 capsules. They do not stop at all, they are revolving at 1 mile an hour. You get on and off while it is moving. Each capsule holds about 25 people. It is quite a view when you get up the top. They jokingly call it the wheel of fortune....it makes approx £25,000.000 a day!!
A river cruise was next with a very funny tour guide who ably presented details on all the sites along the banks of the River Thames.
Next on to the "hop on hop off bus" for a tour of all the major attractions. That was great, I was taking photos left right and centre. Only changed the battery twice to date!
We had a walk around Piccadilly Circus
and all that area taking in all the busyness of London traffic.
Then another river cruise we thought was taking us to Greenwich but did not, but it was included in the bus tour so we enjoyed it anyway, with a couple of coffee breaks in the day we finally got back to the hotel at 11.45pm.
I have never climbed so many stairs as in the underground, they are now upgrading a lot of stations ready for the Olympics in 2012.