Thursday,Feb 12 London

Thursday, February 12, 2009 London
By 5 AM we were both wide awake working on putting our pictures and starting to type our journals. BTW the no jet lag pills that Martha had for us really worked great. At 6:30 we walked to McDonald for breakfast and internet time to check for emails and to let our husbands and kids know that we are doing fine. Took our computers back to the hotel and at 8 AM we started off for our adventures for today. It was cold but we were bundled up with lots of layers of clothes, which worked well for us. Off to the tube As we needed to be at the Tower of London by 9 when they opened. The first place we went was the building where they keep the Crown Jewels, it’s so nice to be here when the tourist traffic is light, the guide said that it’s not unusual for them to have up to 10,000 people a day going thru this building. We then toured White Tower and the Bloody Tower, both full of medieval weapons and such with stories about the prisoners of the Towers. We even saw the Ravens which are always about and the story says that if the ravens ever left the Tower the Kingdom would fall, so the Ravenmaster takes very good care of the birds.
Then we walked to the Tower Bridge where a walkway lets you cross the river Thames providing very good views of the Tower and it’s building’s. We decided to stay on the other side of the river and walk the riverwalk called “The Queens Walk” to find the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. After touring this building we kept on walking all the way back down the river to the London Eye. There we caught the tube that would take us to the area where Kensington Palace is located.
It took us a bit of walking but we finally found Diana’s final home. The tour included Diana’s royal ceremonial dress collection, Victorian rooms and the State Apartments. Walking thru Kensington’s Gardens and on down to Hyde Park we located the Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, which was very moving to view.
On thru the park we saw the Prince Albert Memorial and made a quick stop at the V&A Museum as it was warm inside…. And they had a large Chuli blown glass chandelier hanging in the entryway. From there we walked to Harrods Department store, again it was nice to warm up and they have a wonderful memorial to Diana & Dodi.
To the tube again and back to our hotel area where we found the British Museum, they have the Rosetta Stone and original artifacts from the Parthenon in Greece.
By the time we had left Harrod it was raining. During the day we had very cold & windy weather, even saw snowflakes from time to time. My little meter said it was about 20
Most of the day. At one place on the Queen’s Walk we even found a pile of snow left over from their big snow of last week… it was picture time with our shoes on the snow pile.
Back to our hotel to pick up our computers and off we went to find a meal and internet time at McDonalds. It was very crowded but we found a table and were able to skype our family. Figured out that we had probably walked about 10 miles during this day as we were “on the road” 8 AM to 5:30 PM with time out for 3 tube rides.
After an hour on the net we were back in our rooms typing our blogs & downloading pictures until 11:30 PM . What a wonderful day this has been. I am not going to mess with pictures as you can go on Martha’s blog and see a slideshow.