László Varga

It is hard to choose from all the interesting places one can visit in London. Many people say that even two weeks would not be sufficient to see them all. Well, we had one more day, so we had to choose wisely. In the end it is really a question of personal preference: do you want something entertaining or with more historical value?

We started our day with a visit to The Tower of London. The entry price is ₤21.45 per person (which by the way included a small donation of around ₤2, I do not remember how much exactly). The ticket offices are placed a bit odd outside the actual fortress, but there are huge signs leading people to them and they are actually in the way if someone comes via the tube to the Tower. The queues were surprisingly small (even though there were a lot of people visiting) so we went through the whole process in a couple of minutes.

While the actual tour presents a lot of fortress related stuff (armors, weapons, cellars) I think most people visit the Tower of London to get a glimpse on the Crown Jewels. And maybe it is just me, but I was a bit skeptic about this: are tourists being let so close to one of the biggest treasures of the U.K.? Are the exposed artifacts really the real ones? “Well, yes dear they are. I know it is a bit of a shock, but they are!”, as the lady watching over the crowds of tourists responded to my seemingly naive question… It’s a shock isn’t it? 😀 .

On top of that there are free shows while walking around in the Tower, with actors playing historic scenes right among the visitors. It was quite shock (again) for us to see that some people seemingly appearing from the 17th/18th century just appeared in front of us arguing about some prisoner who was locked in the Tower… anyway we quickly realized it is just a play, and we enjoyed it until the end :).

Our visit at the tower lasted about 2 hours and by the end we were quite overwhelmed by all the historic facts and information we learned that day… we were ready for a break and hit some of the ‘entertainment’-type POI-s of London: the Sealife London Aquarium. Why exactly this one? Well, it is really close to the other venues (right across Big Ben, next to London Eye) and if someone has never visited one, it can be a great experience 🙂 .

The entry price to the aquarium for adults was ₤21.60 and for this one gets a decently built aquarium with its own tunnel below the sharks and sting-rays swimming around you. While I have been to other aquariums, I have never been to one with a tunnel, so that was a first to me. It offers a quite unique viewing angle and certainly has a “wow-effect” 😉 .

After the relaxing one and half hours in the aquarium we got quite hungry, so we had to find something to eat. This time, for some reason, we were not in the mood for the traditional fish’n chips 😛 and we also needed a place to stay with WiFi connection. Well, where else to go than good old McDonald’s? I know it is a bit lame, but at that point it was perfect for us to recharge ourselves a bit before moving to the next venue.

The next venue was the last for the day and we also had limited time to visit it. We were almost sure we cannot see everything, but we headed off anyway to get to The British Museum. Entering the museum is free of charge so it was a bit of a relief after the slightly overpriced first two venues… Having so little time to spare it was a great help to have a brochure (also free 😛 ) to help us organize our visit: it had solutions for 2-3 hour visits but also for one hour visits to just take you through the highlights (yeah, lame again, but when you are bounded by time, anything helps 😉 ).

Our curious nature, however, played a trick on us and we have spent some more time at some of the exposed objects, so we missed a couple of highlights :(. We were just a few meters away from one of them when a guard appeared in front of us, with open arms, at first giving the impression he wants to hug us ( 😛 ), to gently force the crowds out of the museum… Well, maybe next time…

In the end it has proven to be difficult to see even a small subset of things to see in London, thus leading me to my final conclusions about the trip to this city:
1. Indeed, a few days is not enough to visit London.
2. Yes, we will definitely have to go back again :).

And finally some photos here

-9-

After a long period of inactivity (we were moving 😀 ), I am now coming back with the continuation of my post-series about our trip to London (yes, there is more 🙂 ). This time I would like to write about something that is a bit more unusual for the average tourist visiting London: Camden Market.

After some discussions about what to see in London we were advised by our hosts to visit this part of the city. It is great for buying souvenirs at a reasonable price and not only (at least this was the starting reason they convinced us with). The place itself is located in Camden Town (duh…) and it is basically a series of markets, each having a theme of it’s own. While one can easily satisfy his/her thirst for souvenirs in the first few shops along the main road, the real surprise comes after accessing the inner labyrinths of the market: it’s HUGE. I am generally good at finding my way around, but this market-complex, I have to admit, was a challenge.

One interesting thing I noted, was the multitude of nations having their own representatives at this market. You can find everything here from traditional local traders, through Italian, Mexican, Chinese and all the way to Indian traders. It is sometimes enough to check how many types of fast food you can buy here and you can immediately realize how big the world is 🙂 . My initial thought was that the merchandise will be all the same over and over again, but no: there is something new at every corner and you never know what product you may fall in love with at the next shop 🙂 .

It took an entire day to stroll through the market, marking it the highlight of the day (well, that and the double-decker bus ride that we took to get there 😉 ). Now, that I am trying to write down, what really caught me, I cannot say anything specific. It is, I think, the multitude of things and the colorfulness of the market that catches you and takes you to another world. It is a thing people need to experience and not read about, so if you are in London, stop reading and just get to the market and enjoy it :).

-8-

As I have written in the previous post, there are a lot of things to see in London, so it is really hard to pick one. In our case, our first full day of sightseeing was a really long walk but included a lot of the things that most sightseeing buses offer to show 🙂 . Given the fact that we had two full weekend days to choose from to do the big sightseeing stroll around London, we had to pick one. Usually there are two factors here: weather and if there is something interesting going on on any of the two days.

Well, there was something interesting going on right the next day (Saturday): the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Normally in the summer time this is done daily, but in the winter period this show is only “played” every other day. So there you go, the sightseeing day was picked so easily 😉 . The changing of the guards usually starts at around 10:30, but by that time the crowds take all the strategic places where one can see stuff from. To top that, we arrived a bit late, but luckily I do not have too much problems with visibility over the crowds and additionally I can hold my camera real high 😛 . I could see something while I was there, but checking the movies afterwards helped a lot:

The show ended at around noon, we took a few classic pictures with Buckingham Palace and headed off on The Mall towards Trafalgar Square. There was a big show going on here, but there was still room for street performers in front of the National Gallery which were quite interesting to watch. By this time the sun also came out with a quite powerful shine, so we took some time to enjoy the scenery.

Next stop was Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey. Just the short stroll through the street connecting the two squares was a hustle. For this short 10 minute walk a strong wind has woken up and it also started to rain a bit (hence the need for a QUALITY umbrella). When we got to Parliament Square the sun was shining again and the winds have slowed down a bit. Again, we did not enter any of the buildings (the entry fee to Westminster Abbey is, I think, too much), but we heard Big Ben telling us the exact time (it was 2PM) 🙂 .

A walk across Westminster Bridge offered us a classic view of the Houses of Parliament, but at this hour the sun starts shining from the direction of the building itself, so it is really hard to take a decent picture. It is best seen, I guess, in the morning. In addition, the winds tuned their power a bit up again and this was really intense while standing on the bridge. We skipped London Eye and headed to get something to eat. We found a great place which offered food “Enough to feed an elephant” (that was the name of it) on York Rd., in parallel with the great big wheel 🙂 . It was really time to get inside somewhere, because by this time it started to rain heavily, so we took our time with the food until the sun came out again (we did not have to wait too much).

The next target was a bit further away from where we were, so we took the tube from Waterloo station to The Monument. The latter station is actually right next to the tower which gives its name. The Monument stands as a commemoration for the Great Fire of London. Visitors can climb up the long swirling staircase to the top for ₤3 and have a great view of London from there. It is a bit windy, but I think it is worth climbing. In the end, when you get down, they even give you some kind of diploma proving, that you climbed the 311 stairs all the way to the top 🙂 .

The next target was Tower Bridge, which towards the evening got lit up. We had a walk through it, took a bunch of photos and when we got off the other side, we even caught on camera how the bridge looks like when it is opened for tall ships (in this case a ship with a wedding on it):

The night scenery got lit up after a tube-ride from London Bridge station via Waterloo Station to Oxford Street station when we got to Piccadilly Circus. The neon lights and the “big-city shops” topped with a great steak dinner at Aberdeen Steakhouse (courtesy of our hosts, thanks 🙂 ) was, I think, a perfect ending to our walk. We had a lovely day, we have seen a lot, but we got kind of exhausted, so this was it for our day. And I think this is it for today’s post also…

Conclusion: if you have one day in London, there is no need to take the sightseeing bus. Just follow the above route and you will not miss much 😉

-6-