Live - Independence Italian Med (7/13-7/27) - European Vacation

[h20skibum]

Kensington Palace has been home to the young royals, and it is not as ornate as Buckingham Palace.  They do allow photos inside.  Entry was included with the London Pass, but you had to stand in the ticket line, show the pass, and get your paper ticket.

 

A few photos from inside.

 

 

Doll houses

 

 

 

More from inside

 

 

 

 

Victoria’s dress, and Diana’s dress

 

 

 

 

 

[Calbeeman]

On 7/29/2019 at 1:32 AM, h20skibum said:

We had a packed day for our first day in London, and walked 20 miles, according to our Fitbit’s.  We both love walking, and it was just easier for us, given the route I mapped for things to do on Day 1

 

We have been lucky with the weather. Just overcast yesterday, and bright sunshine today. 

 

Will post more about our first day in London later.  Waiting in line for the Tower of London now, but here is a nice photo of Tower Bridge this morning. 

 

 

 

London is such a great city with so much to see. For those going I recommend a night cruise on the Thames as the city lights are impressive.

 

 

[Calbeeman]

On 7/29/2019 at 2:59 PM, depplep said:

Love to see some pictures of The Tower. I've been to London 6 times and to The Tower, 6 times. My absolute favorite place!

 

 

[h20skibum]

37 minutes ago, Calbeeman said:

 

London is such a great city with so much to see. For those going I recommend a night cruise on the Thames as the city lights are impressive.

 

 

 

That comment dovetails perfectly into the next part of our visit.

 

We left Kensington Palace and walked back to our hotel to drop off our purchases and find a place for supper.  We thought about riding the London Eye, since it was one attraction that was open later.  However, when we got to the Eye, the ticket booths were closed, since they had sold enough tickets to take them through closing time.  We would have to put this off until the next day, and this would work out perfectly.

 

Included with our Pass was a riverboat cruise on the Thames, so we boarded and cruises up to Tower Bridge, then back to Westminster

 

 

 

The Shard

 

 

The Tower of London from the river boat. More photos will follow from our visit there

 

 

A nice shot from the river of a bus in the middle of the Tower Bridge

 

 

The Eye on our way back

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

Monday turned out to be a beautiful day in London.  The morning sun was shining bright, without a cloud in the sky.  We had a nice breakfast in the hotel, then headed out for our first, and only trip on the underground.

 

I think I read that Victoria Station is a main hub and has around 800,000 people passing through each day.  Early Monday morning, many of those were probably passing through as we boarded for our trip to the Tower of London.  The cars were packed with standing room only, until we were a couple of stops away from Tower Hill.

 

We got off and walked toward the Tower of London.  This is one site where the pass works without needing to go to the ticket line.  We took a few photos of Tower Bridge, and walked on the bridge for a few more, before going back to Tower of London.

 

Tower bridge

 

 

The Shard from the bridge

 

 

Tower of London

 

 

 

drawbridge to Tower of London

 

 

Opening time on Monday is 10 am, and a half hour before opening time, the entry line is long.

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

Since we were near the front of the line, our plan was to go view the Crown Jewels first, then explore the rest of the Tower.  I think that was everyone’s plan, the you could hear people mapping out their route to the Crown Jewels.  Once the gate opened (they actually opened about 15 minutes ahead of the posted time) it was literally a stampede as people were running to get to the location of the Jewels.

 

 

No photos allowed inside of the Jewels.  The guards were posted outside

 

 

 

There are a number of residences located within the Tower

 

 

I liked the wild beasts

 

 

 

[heatherb1958]

Still following.

I am so happy for you that the weather has been kind to you so far with the photos posted.

Up here in the North West has been awful with torrential rain and flooding. One town has had to be evacuated as the local reservoir is under threat of breaching. 

[grapau27]

13 minutes ago, heatherb1958 said:

Still following.

I am so happy for you that the weather has been kind to you so far with the photos posted.

Up here in the North West has been awful with torrential rain and flooding. One town has had to be evacuated as the local reservoir is under threat of breaching. 

Raining here in the North East too.

I have been following the op too and I am pleased their cruise then London has exceeded their expectations.

[depplep]

On 7/31/2019 at 9:48 AM, heatherb1958 said:

Great photos around London.

We have only ever been to London twice in our whole lives , the last time was in the late 80s. 😆.

 

Wow! This is amazing to me. I so love London and to think that I've been 6 times and had to fly a long way and you've been twice and can get there by train. I only wish I lived that close.

[grapau27]

13 minutes ago, depplep said:

Wow! This is amazing to me. I so love London and to think that I've been 6 times and had to fly a long way and you've been twice and can get there by train. I only wish I lived that close.

We were last in London 3 years ago when we were invited to the Queen's Royal Garden Party and stayed 2 nights 

The time before was in 2014 when we stayed at The Ritz Hotel for 3 nights for our 33rd wedding anniversary.

London is a fabulous place and we visited all the places that the op kindly posted photos of 

[depplep]

7 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

We were last in London 3 years ago when we were invited to the Queen's Royal Garden Party and stayed 2 nights 

The time before was in 2014 when we stayed at The Ritz Hotel for 3 nights for our 33rd wedding anniversary.

London is a fabulous place and we visited all the places that the op kindly posted photos of 

The Queen's Royal Garden Party? You are killing me!!!  What an honor. I so love your country and your Queen. Thank you to the OP for the great photos.

[grapau27]

12 minutes ago, depplep said:

The Queen's Royal Garden Party? You are killing me!!!  What an honor. I so love your country and your Queen. Thank you to the OP for the great photos.

Thank you.

I have followed the ops review and it has been one of the best I have read.

This is the back lawn of Buckingham Palace.

We were given a comprehensive guided tour before the Royal Garden Party but you can go and pay for a tour of Buckingham Palace and it is well worth doing.

Edited August 1, 2019 by grapau27

[depplep]

7 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Thank you.

I have followed the ops review and it has been one of the best I have read.

This is the back lawn of Buckingham Palace.

We were given a comprehensive guided tour before the Royal Garden Party but you can go and pay for a tour of Buckingham Palace and it is well worth doing.

Beautiful photo of you and your husband and of the garden. We've never been to London when Buckingham Palace was open to tour. We've always been in the early spring or late winter. Now on my bucket list.... Arundel Castle.

[grapau27]

1 minute ago, depplep said:

Beautiful photo of you and your husband and of the garden. We've never been to London when Buckingham Palace was open to tour. We've always been in the early spring or late winter. Now on my bucket list.... Arundel Castle.

Thanks it's Graham who does all the posting.

Regards Pauline.

[h20skibum]

5 hours ago, grapau27 said:

Thank you.

I have followed the ops review and it has been one of the best I have read.

This is the back lawn of Buckingham Palace.

We were given a comprehensive guided tour before the Royal Garden Party but you can go and pay for a tour of Buckingham Palace and it is well worth doing.

 

 

Thanks.  Great photo of you two.  

 

Sorry this is taking me a a while to finish, but I hope to wrap it up soon.

 

We have a few more photos from inside Tower of London before we move on.

 

 

 

I found this lovely necklace.  Maybe they should include one in the gift shop.😁

 

 

And a strange creature, made of many weapons

 

 

[h20skibum]

Our next stop, after Tower of London, was Tower Bridge.  Once again, the pass included admission, and you could go straight in without going to the ticket line first.

 

My photos finally finished uploading to google photos, and it randomly selects photos to stylize, and this is one that it automatically selected.  I like this one so much, I may have to find a place to frame it in our house.

 

 

The tour takes you up and across the glass floor walkway

 

 

Then down into the engine room.

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

It is about an hour walk from Tower Bridge to London Eye, so we walked along the south bank of the Thames.  For us, walking is a great way to discover things along the way, and we are fortunate that we are able to walk as much as we do.

 

We discovered a wonderful outdoor food venue along the way, and several other places.

 

 

The London Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

Some may wonder how we were able to find our way around London.  Many of the streets are not laid out in a grid like the US, but they are winding with lots of roundabouts.

 

I have an app on my iPhone called CityMaps2Go.  You can download maps to places you plan to visit, and use them to find your way.   The offline maps use the gps in the phone to show your location.

 

 

London was probably one of the larger downloads for this trip.  So armed with the phone as my camera and map, and a power bank to recharge it on long days, we don’t appear as typical tourists.  In fact, we even had people stop and ask us for directions..😁

[h20skibum]

We were so glad that we didn’t get on the London Eye the previous night, because the sky was so clear now, and the views were spectacular.   We bought fast track passes for £40 each, and were given a time of 2:15.  Those with normal tickets would be stuck in line for several hours, judging by the length of the line.

 

We used our time to shop for souvenirs and eat, then boarded the Eye.

 

 

 

Each car holds about 25 people, and it takes about 30 minutes for a complete revolution 

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

The Eye is 443 feet tall with a diameter of 394 feet.

 

 

 

We are at the top

 

 

 

The playground looks so small from up here

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

After the Eye, it was back across the river to visit Westminster Abby.  Another attraction included in the London Pass, but you still had to stand in the ticket queue and show your pass.  

 

 

 

 

This is another place that doesn’t allow photos inside, but I had already taken these before I saw the sign😬

 

 

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

Our last photo of the Abby, before setting out to explore some more

 

[h20skibum]

Our last outing in London would be to visit Harrod’s.  Once again, we set out on foot from the Abby and traveled through some fashionable neighborhoods on our way.

 

 

I love the architecture of these places.

 

 

I understand that Hans Place must require a large bank balance to live here.

 

 

How many Harrod’s bags can you fit in this?

 

 

 

[h20skibum]

After packing in so much in our too short stay in London, it was time to pack for our flight back to the US.   My initial plan was to take the underground to Heathrow for our 11:15 am flight to San Francisco.   After seeing how crowded the tubes would be on an early weekday morning, we had the hotel reserve a car service to get us there.

 

Eagles Chauffeurs provided the Mercedes and driver for our transport, and they arrived about 10 minutes before our scheduled time.  Although more than using the underground, this was a much less stressful way to start our long trip.  I would highly recommend them.

 

So, after three weeks and many additional purchases to place in our bags, we were just barely under the weight allowance for our two suitcases.

 

The travel gods were still shining on us when we landed at SFO.   We used the mobile passport app to clear customs, and there were only 3 ahead of us in line.  The normal lines had hundreds.

 

Our bags were one of the first off, and our transport arrived about a minute after exiting the terminal.

 

Even the fog had cleared from around the towers, and the sun was bright as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge 

 

Another month here, then it will be time to return to Pennsylvania to prepare for our next cruise in January.

 

Thanks to everyone who followed along, and for your kind comments.   I believe this cruise and trip is one of the best we have ever had.  I think all the friendly and interesting people we met on this cruise helped to make it such a good trip.

 

To all those we met, and those who followed and we may meet one day, thanks.

[kernow]

Thank you for a fabulous review, I've really enjoyed the cruise part and the London part and will miss the daily updates. 

 

Hope you get the chance to return to Europe again soon.