LONDON, FRIDAY

Friday morning, Whit went to work at about 7 and I slept later.  I finally got up at 9, did a quick workout in the room, and was off.  I researched and took the “original bus tour” through the city.  Luckily it was warm and sunny.  The deal with the bus tickets is that you can “hop on/hop off” if you see something interesting.  I made the most of that and everything worked out perfectly.  I started in the middle of the city.  I took the bus to Big Ben.

A very popular square in the middle of London.  That is a WWI monument in back.

The same square, this side shows the London Museum of Natural History

One of the Queens' gardens.  They were all beautiful.

The rooftops where Mary Poppins was filmed.

A church.  You can see my guide with the mic explaining things as we rode atop the bus.

Palace of Westminster.  It was huge

Me looking across the bridge to the palace and Big Ben.

Statue of Winston Churchill.

A nice bridge that the boat is going under.  You can see the guide speaking at the front.

St. Paul's Cathederal.  This was the closest I got.

London Bridge.  If you look closely you can see it written on the pillar.

Towers Bridge.  

From there, I took the boat (included in the price) up the Thames River.  I stopped at the London Bridge, next to the London Tower, for the Jack the Ripper walking tour.  That lasted about 2 hrs and finally I made my way back onto the tour bus at 6 pm.  I definitely saw the most important attractions that the city had to offer through that whole tour.  It was very cool. 

The tower of London.  More like a castle.  This is where all the famous beheadings took place.

A bar on the Jack the Ripper tour.  This bar has been around since 1850.  Jack's last victim was last seen alive at this bar.

The church where all the "street walkers" were allowed to do business.

When I got back to the hotel, I called Whit and again, he told me where he was going after work.  I met him there again and we were off with some friends of his.  First, we went to a nice pub and had a couple drinks; then we walked down the streets in search of dinner.  The four of us finally decided on a nice Italian place for supper.  I tried something different: lamb liver topped with bacon.  It was okay. 

We then went out to some more clubs.  It wasn’t a very late night because most bars close at midnight; even on a Friday night (the clubs are open later, but, we weren’t interested).   We called it a night around then and went back to the hotel room.  The bar in the hotel was closed too.  We decided to go to bed.