There and Back Again

Listening to: Goodnight Lovers (Depeche Mode)
Pondering: The average tourist wants to go to places where there are no tourists. (Sam Ewing)

Today I spent the entire day doing what every visitor in London seems to do when they first get here. I purchased a ticket to the Big Bus Company hop on/off tour and saw the city above a double-decker bus. I don’t care if Rick Steves or seasoned travelers snub their noses at this means of discovering the city. To me, it is the most fun and the most convenient way indeed!

My sister and I hopped on at Victoria Station and from there the bus went to Green Park where switched buses before heading to Harrods at Knightsbridge, Victoria & Albert Museum and then Science & Natural History Museum in South Kensington, Kensington Gardens, Kensington Palace and Bayswater Road. We switched buses again at Marble Arch near Hyde Park and continued our way through Gloucester Place, Madame Tussaud’s in Marylebone and Regents Park. We got off at Oxford Place to have lunch at this cozy Italian restaurant we loved to visit the last time we were here. After lunch, we window-shopped a bit at Top Shop before hopping on the bus again to continue our tour of London.

From Oxford Circus where all the shopping is, we took Regent Street to the National Gallery, busy Trafalgar Square, the Embankment, the Horse Guards in Whitehall and the famous No. 10 Downing Street before heading to Big Ben and the magnificent Houses of Parliament (my favorite). We then crossed the Westminster Bridge where you can see the London Eye, the piers of River Thames before crossing another bridge - Waterloo Bridge - which took us to the Strand and the Royal Courts of Justice, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Monument. From here we crossed London Bridge and then the Tower Bridge with the Tower of London looming to our left. From the Tower of London we went back to the Embankment to catch another glimpse of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. We then drove around Westminster Abbey, which led to our last stop - Buckingham Palace, of course. From there the bus went to Victoria Station where our day started and ended.

And that is how I spent my 7th day in London.