London Day 13 We knocked another one of the "must-see" London sights off our list today as we experienced the Tower of London. We got going earlier than usual so we could see the Crown Jewels first before the big crowds. It was a good thing as the line was a lot longer later in the day. The Crown Jewels are quite old and impressive. It is hard to believe that most of the them have been around since the late Seventeenth century. The amount and size of the di...

London Day 12 The plan for today was to explore Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court was the royal home of King Henry the VIII (mid-sixteenth century) and served as a royal residence until the time of King George II (early to mid-seventeenth century). The palace is located about a half-hour southwest of London by train. It is quite a picturesque setting as it is situated right along the Thames. We saw the Henry VIII apartments, the William III apartments, the...

London Day 11 Not much to share today. We left Manchester on the 11:00 AM train and arrived in London about 1:00 PM. The ride was relaxing. After waiting in line to get our Tube passes, it was a quick trip to our flat we arranged through Airbnb. We think we picked a good one. It is a two bedroom, two bathroom ground floor flat in the Pimlico neighborhood of London. The kids see happy because there is good wifi. Amy and I are happy because it is big and qu...

Manchester Day 10 Today was another day dedicated to football (for Luke and I). I got up earlier than the others and ran south of downtown to the Moss Side area and to the site of Manchester City F.C.'s old stadium, Maine Road. It was torn down about 12 years ago and was replaced by housing and a school. There is a little park with small monument showing the place where the stadium's center circle was located. Going from the old to the new... Luke and I the...

Manchester Day 9 Got up a little earlier than the last couple of days (thankfully had a early night last night). We walked over to the rental car place and picked up a Vauxhall Mokka (a nice little 4-door manual transmission) and headed north to the little village of Rimington. It took a little while to get used to driving on the left side of the road and thankfully there were not a lot of cars out early. It took us about an hour to get there with most of th...