Touring Downtown London

Post date: 29-Jul-2009 13:56:34

Today was very busy and very tiring. Today we beat jetlag the hard way - fell asleep at 4am, woke up at 9am and went out to tour downtown London for 8 hours. We chose a few attractions that appealed to us and set our for a day of touring.

I have to say that after being in New York, I think there are actually more touristy people in downtown London than there are in New York. It was really busy! The tube was packed and as soon as you step out of the Westminster station, you see Big Ben and thousands of people. It's very over whelming, so we just sat down and caught our breath for a few minutes. Then we set out.

We hunted for a few geocaches along our way too, which inevitably lead us off the beaten track and into some wonderful little places a few blocks from the main crowd. While looking for one of the geocaches, we even stumbled upon a love letter that was left by a young man to be found by the woman he proposed to. Apparently, she left to study overseas and they were not able to meet up for some time, so she had been given the coordinates of this hidden love letter and has yet to retrieve it. It was a very touching treasure find and made the day that much more special.

As usual, here's the map of our route so you can see where we went and a few choice photos along the path. Where there are gaps in the route, we were underground on the tube. You can also scroll to the right a bit to see the route we take home everyday heading out of the London Bridge station on the Southern train bound for Honor Oak Park. On average, it takes us about 30 minutes from the time we step outside of our house to the time we reach downtown London via 3 trains.

(In case you didn't know, click on the little red bullets to see a pic.)

And, for all you die-hard family members that love to see each and every one of our photos, here's the photo album for today's day of touring around downtown London.

And one final thing, I have to say that my moleskin notebook has come in very handy. I keep track of the sights we want to check out and make numerous notes about train schedules, draw little maps to aid our travels and keep observations of the people I meet and places I visit. It's got a little pocket in the back for keeping my flight/train/ferry tickets, too. If anyone is thinking about doing any travel, I'd recommend one of these note books...sounds like an advertisement, eh...seriously, it's great.