We arrived at the QE Hostel mid-afternoon and basically
rested the afternoon. It was a fair walk from the nearest metro station, but it
was cheap which the main concern for us was! Our first night there we walked
back towards the metro and found a pub for dinner where we got some amazing
(but expensive) steaks and Magners Pear Ciders. The only thing we really did
that night was purchase two ‘London Passes’ for our sightseeing over the
following two days. The London Passes were nearly $100 each for two days, but
when you take into account the entry fees for sights in London, it works out
very cost effective!
On our first day sightseeing in London we headed to pick up
out passes in Piccadilly before heading to Tower of London. The Tower of London
should really be called the Castle of London as it really is a castle rather
than a tower per se. We spent a good part of the morning walking around the
tower walls and looking at the crown jewels and watched some good footage of
the queen’s coronation. Was worth the visit, but without the London Pass it
would have cost us $30 each!
Our second stop on the first day was the Tower Bridge which
really is an iconic symbol of London… much more so than the London Bridge! We
both always thought the Tower Bridge was the London Bridge, but it is in fact
the next bridge along the Themes which is really plain! From the bridge we
walked along the Themes and boarded the HMS Belfast (the huge war ship docked
in the Themes) and had a look around. It was the largest war ship used in WW2
and lived up to its size. The corridor when on forever and the facilities were
amazing. You could see how a thousand people could stay out on these ships for
long periods of time!
After an hour on the Belfast we continued along the Themes
to the London Bridge where we did the ‘London Bridge Experience’ which we
initially thought would just be some historic stuff about the bridge, but
turned out to be a mix of historical information, comedy and horror show! The
last part of the tour was a walk through the ‘catacombs’ where numerous zombies
jumped out at you in the dark and we got chased by a murderer with a chainsaw!
From the London Bridge Experience we headed back toward the
Tower of London pier and boarded a River Themes cruise boat (also included in the
London Pass) and headed down the river towards Westminster with the aim of
going to Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately when we arrived the Abbey was closed
for the afternoon, so we headed back to the hostel for the night after a huge
day out in surprisingly sunny London.
Day two in London and we stored our bags at the hostel and
headed back out to make more use of our London Passes even through what we had
done the day before had already paid them off! Our first port of call was
Westminster Abbey were we spent an hour or so wandering around the amazing
building and seeing the burial sites of a number of famous people including
Charles Dickens. From here we headed Trafalgar Square, at this stage not really
knowing what was there, but enjoyed seeing the massive copper lions around the
square and getting some good photos climbing up to them like all the other
tourists there! After a quick visit here we had another lunch at a
Whetherspoons pub before heading off to Kings Cross to find Platform 9¾! From
reading up where it was, we discovered that J.K Rowling actually stuffed up in
her book and described another station but called in Kings Cross, so there is
no brick wall area between platform 9 and 10, but an area near at the terminal
has been renovated to provide this tourist attraction and they have put a
trolley half into the wall under the sign.
After a 5 minute visit to Platform 9¾ we headed off to the
Winston Churchill Britain at War exhibition which gave some good history about
the conditions of Britain especially during the time when the cities were
bombed. Not a very big exhibit and was totally empty when we were there, but it
was quite enjoyable. I would only go there if it is included in the pass, as it
probably was not worth the once again exuberant entry price!
Saint Paul’s Cathedral was our next stop and by this stage
we were fairly exhausted, but I persisted and climbed the 560 painful stairs to
the top of the cathedral to get an amazing view over the city. Once I was up
the top I thought it was worth the climb, but after a long day it was quite
exhausting! I would suggest doing it early in a sightseeing day rather than
towards the end! There were quite a few people struggling with the climb.
From the cathedral we headed to Abbey Road to get a stereotypically
photo crossing the road. Unfortunately the road was quite bus and there are no
lights at the crossing, so we saw several near accidents and some angry drivers
who had to stop while tourist walked out one at a time to get photo crossing the road! It would be annoying
to have to drive along that road as there would always be tourist there!
After a long day we headed back to the hostel via Portobello
Road to grab out bags before our 7:30pm train to the harbour where we caught an
overnight ferry to Amsterdam.
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Tower of London |
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Throne? |
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Inside the tower |
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Bit blurry - one of the crowns |
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Westminster Abbey |
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Fountain in Trafalgar Square |
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Trafalgar Square |
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Trafalgar Square |
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Entry to Platform 9 3/4 |
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Bec heading to Hogwards |
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St Pauls Cathedral |
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View from St Pauls |
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View from St Pauls |
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Bec on Abbey Road |
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Abbey Road |
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