LONDON!!!

We'd heard that getting the London Pass would be a good thing because it would cover the entrance fees for many of the sights in London and the Thames Uber Boat as well. Of course, to make it worth your while, you'd need to see as many of the sights as possible. And you have to know Art is good at fitting in as much as he can in one day that would wear anybody out. The kids still laugh about it to this day.

We started the day off with a really lovely included breakfast at the Montana Hotel and headed out to catch the train at the Gloucester Road Station.

We were actually there a bit early and met a friendly American family living in Germany (with the London Pass like us) on holiday with two elementary age children. They told us they were originally from Louisville, Kentucky, but would not want to move back to the US because of the gun violence and lax gun laws. They would not feel safe sending their children to American schools.

Wow!

Art decided to climb up the stairway to the top of the Tower Bridge (of course 😏). I chose to ride the lift. There is a walkway with a glass floor over the river Thames that you can walk on and see the cars passing below. That was fun.

There were a lot of displays about the building of the bridge which was very interesting.

We caught the Uber Boat which we could board using our London Pass and arrived in Greenwich. (That's the London Eye Ferris wheel in the background.)

We enjoyed seeing the museums and of course, had to stand on the Prime Meridian Line.

According to the NASA website: The Prime Meridian divides Earth into the Eastern and the Western Hemisphere. The prime meridian is at 0° (0 degrees) longitude.

And as we always do on trips, happened to meet some truly wonderful people who happily took our photo for us and asked us to do the same for them.

We spent quite a bit of time talking and laughing with them. They happened to be from Newfoundland. We told them we'd been there as well as Nova Scotia and how we loved seeing Balancing Rock. 

We also told them how we LOVE Canadians and that they are just the nicest people we meet no matter where we travel. They laughed and said, "Not Montreal though, they're not as nice as us." 😂 This must be like the rivalry between people who live north (Cubs) and south (White Sox) of Chicago.

Too funny. We've been to Montreal and they are nice there also.

We saw a lot of displays about the study of time and navigation. 

Free entrance to the Cutty Sark sailing ship was also part of our London Pass so of course, we needed to see that also since it was right on the dock.

I've only ever thought of Cutty Sark as a Scotch whisky. 

According to the Royal Museums Greenwich, "The Cutty Sark represents the pinnacle of clipper ship design and was one of the fastest ships of its day." It's about150 years old.

We caught the Uber Boat to the Westminster stop, disembarked and walked past Big Ben. 

There was a long line at Westminster Abbey but it moved quickly and we used our London Passes again at the entrance.

We saw in the evening news just before we left Hawaii that the mosaic flooring where the coronation of King Charles III was to take place had been renovated and the carpeting covering it removed so we could see what it looked like. Groups of 10 people would even be allowed to walk on it with their socks from May 15th to July 29th.

This was in the Guardian newspaper:

"The flooring is the best surviving example outside Italy of a rare type of mosaic stonework known as Cosmati, named after the Italian family that created it.

The pavement was hidden under carpet and away from public view from the 1870s until a two-year programme of conservation work was completed by the abbey in 2010."

We saw the tombs of Isaac Newton and a LOT of other very famous people. It was interesting to see that Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I were entombed together (right photo). Mary was trying to assassinate her cousin, Elizabeth I. Elizabeth I was therefore forced to have her executed.

And in the Poets' Corner....  Look at all these guys getting big fancy sculptures. See Jane Austen with her teeny little plaque there? 🙄

After two lucky days of no rain, we came out to a downpour.

However, we made it to the tube station and returned to our Gloucester stop in Kensington.

We considered the alternatives for dinner and decided to go back to that Lebanese restaurant we enjoyed so much the day before.

The owner recognized us and when we told him we'd be ordering the same thing again because we liked it so much, he added a free dessert.

It was another wonderful day in London.

We would be meeting our travel buddies the following day.