We traveled to London England right after Christmas, 2012 and spent the New Year in London. Wow, what a great city. Most people probably know where London is located but here is a map just in case. (Location Map of London)
A young Japanese girl took the photo of us with Buckingham Palace in the background. She asked us to take her and her boyfriend’s photo and she returned the favor. This is common strategy for couples taking photos!
We stayed at a hotel near a Tube Station and took the Tube to the Thames River and walked to some of the sites near the river. If you stay in London, get a room near a Tube station and you can get to anywhere you want.
This is the famous Tower Bridge which crosses the River Thames. It is separate from its equally famous sister bridge, London Bridge. We also went to the adjacent Tower Bridge museum. The bridge was built in 1890 and has 40,000 visitors cross it daily
We took the tube across town and went to the Kensington Palace area. The gardens and grounds around the palace are huge and very nicely done. I am sure it is amazing in the spring.
Shown above were some of the landscaping leading up to the main structure.
London is known for its small intimate theatres. Shown above is the Shaftsbury theatre where we saw the Rock of Ages live performance. It was very entertaining.
This is a tower on the House of Parliament shooting straight up.
This photo was taken from the bus passing by the House of Parliament.
Here is an English pub that we visited several times. It was the closest watering hole from our hotel and became our neighborhood bar. Very friendly staff. They had a large sign up saying that if your pint of beer had too much head, they would gladly top it off.
Here is a photo from inside the Tube. London has some of the best public transportation in the world. Stephanie and I had a great time learning the Tube train/subway system that takes you all over the city. Several times we rode the tube and spontaneously picked a station to get off. All the stations seemed to have something going on. We would check out the bars, restaurants and browse the shops. There was never a dull moment.
Harrods is a huge multi-story upscale shopping mall and a great people watching area.
Here is my obligatory Big Ben shot.
If you travel to London, we recommend a day trip to the nearby town of Windsor. Shown above is a street in the neat town of Windsor. In the 2 photos below is the Windsor Castle, a favorite home of the Queen. The architecture, art and history are amazing. In one room, there was a display of the royal family tree and it went back to the year 871 AD. The English folks love their history. There is nothing like it in the USA.
I took a few shots of the architecturally designed ceilings in St. Georges cathedral at Windsor Castle because they are so amazing. The first time I visited here in 2003, I attempted to photograph the stained glass windows and my cameras processor went crazy and never worked right again.
I took a photo of the aerial display of the castle. This gives you an idea how large it is.
The guy to the right of me was not a lot of fun, but I had a blast!
