Sightseeing in London

Tuesday was our first full day in London so we tried to see as many sites as we could. We each bought a London pass which included probably over 40 sites you could see. Our first stop was the Tower of London (left). It is a historic castle/fort that housed the monarchs like 1000 years ago. It was really old and cool. We took an hour tour of place that had a funny tourguide and later walked through the actual Tower itself (a large exhibit about knights and castles).

After the site we walked along the Tower Bridge (right) which is a really cool bridge made of two castle towers connected by a high walkway. It goes over the River Thames (the main river through London) and it has some great views. We were able to see how it was built and how it worked. The architecture – like so many buildings in London – was pretty incredible. I have never seen so many cool looking buildings before in my life.

Lots of the sites we saw were either two or three star sites on Rick Steves 3 star scale system. We briefly stopped by the Shakespearean Globe and then walked across the Millennium Bridge (the bridge that breaks in the last Harry Potter movie) to St. Pauls Cathedral. I had never been to a Cathedral before so I was pretty excited. When we were waiting to get in we couldn’t believe how huge it was – and that it was built so long ago. It also crazy how it is right in the middle of the city intermixed with other really modern buildings right next to it. Once we got inside – we couldn’t believe how incredible everything was. So far, we all agree that St. Pauls Cathedral was our favorite site (although inside we couldn’t take pictures). It was HUGE, and not only that, but it seemed like every square foot was decorated with some statue of painting that was built into the walls. The ceilings were huge on most of them they had murals that covered whole rooms. A couple minutes after arriving, a choir composed of children and adults, met in the middle to sing. They were really pretty and the music added to the overall ambiance of the place. We ended up sitting in some chairs near the center and just relaxed looking at everything – we loved it. We then took the staircase up the dome, which ended up being over 400 stairs (it got tiring and very narrow towards the top). But it was worth it as we were at the very top of the dome, outside, overlooking London.

After dinner we headed to Wicked. Mike, Tiffany, and I had all seen it before. We got pretty cheap tickets that were in the very back but Em rented a pair of binoculars so she could see a little better. It was great – in fact I actually liked it better than the show I saw two years ago in New York – the lead singer was amazing.