London calling...

London calling (photo by Mieke Berg)

Hello all!
Sorry for the absence recently, wi-fi has been overloaded at my hostels, and every time I started an entry here I was usually bumped off. So, as I enter the last couple days of my trip which is basically me sitting in a hotel and relaxing after a long journey, I'm going to take some time and give you a quick rundown of what I've been up to since mid-may. First entry: London, Bath and Stonehenge.

London calling and you can bet that I got the full experience, with rain almost every day, but it was still great. It's hard to be disappointed when you're in London, there's so much to see and do that it almost makes your head spin. You have to just pick the highlights that you want to hit and go from there.

London makes it easy. You can pick which areas to explore based on neighborhoods. They're pretty nicely organized so you have tons of theaters in one place, museums in another and tourist attractions in central locations.  Overall though, I think I covered some significant ground, despite being KO'd by a sick day.

Time to play tourist



Westminster Abbey (Photo by Avery Cropp)

My first full sightseeing day started in the Westminster Area which includes all the touristy things: Westminster Abbey, The London Eye, Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament. Buckingham Palace is just a short walk away from here as well.

Westminster Abbey is gorgeous! Of course, because it is so gorgeous, you're not allowed to take photos inside. They get you on the back end with amazing postcards and prints in the gift shop, which are pretty affordable. But I know I'd rather be able to share them with my readers here of course, and maybe put some on my wall. Take my word for it though, if you go, it's well worth the cost. They provide you with a great audio guide that walks you through the whole abbey.

You can spend at least three hours there just exploring and listening to the guide. Queen Elizabeth I is buried there, along with her sister Mary along with several other names you've heard throughout history books in school. The architecture is amazing and it opened in 1090 so it's seen centuries and centuries of history during it's time.  Poets corner is nice, featuring memorials to Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Shakespeare, and there are some lovely cloisters that you can walk through which pay homage to soldiers lost in battle. It was fitting considering I was there on Memorial Day. I highly recommend it.
After this I took a walk along the Thames and played photographer for some time. A couple of my favorite pictures are below, then I headed to Buckingham Palace.







Now, the Queen was in while I was there so I didn't get to tour the palace itself but seeing it from the outside was pretty cool.


Buckingham Palace (Photo by Avery Cropp)

Day trip to Bath and Stonehenge

I also took a day tour to Stonehenge and Bath. To get there I used a group called Anderson Tours, but I don't know if I would recommend them, The driver and the tour guide that were leading us seemed as though they wanted to be anywhere but there and were even late past the times we were told to meet them back at the bus, so they didn't seem to have much respect for our time. Other reviews I've seen have been positive, but just beware.

Other than that, Bath and Stonehenge were pretty cool.

Stonehenge (Photo by Avery Cropp)

Fun facts about Stonehenge that I learned with my audio tour:
-It's now believed to be a burial ground for important chieftains or individuals. Other burial mounds surround it as well.
-Another henge has been found up the river from Stonehenge and it's believed that there was a large society that lived there at one point, archaeologists are continuing to study the area
-The Druids are supposedly not connected to the area



Roman Baths (Photo by Avery Cropp)

Bath is quite a beautiful city. I would've liked to spend more time there than my tour allowed, but I did see the Roman Baths. The Baths have been excavated and are the most well-preserved roman ruins in all of England. They've been on this site since 500 BC. Yes, I totally had a history geek-out moment and the audio guide was great. After spending most of my time at the Baths (which were included in the price of the tour) I looked at Bath Abbey, walked along some nice cobblestone streets and had an ice cream in a little café before hopping back on the bus back to London.


 








Other Recommendations

The best word in the English language when travelling: Free. All museums in London are Free, which is great when you have so many rainy days. So get up, get out, and go and learn something.

Check out the Victoria and Albert Museum, they have collections that range from ancient roman antiquities to a history of Fashion and I easily spent three hours here looking at things. The collections are beautiful and so well-preserved that it's mind-blowing. An example: renaissance era textiles that look as though someone created them yesterday.

Take a trip to the British Museum, a museum of art and artifacts. It has the most extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts that I've ever seen, including the Rosetta stone. If I was Egypt I'd want my stuff back, but it's so cool to see all of these things up close and in person for Free. There's so many other things to see too, beautifully preserved art, Arabic art, and artifacts from all over the world including the Mayan culture.

Kensington and Hyde Park are great for walking around but I'd save the money and skip the tour of Kensington Palace, even if it is where Will and Kate live.

The Tower of London can easily be turned into a day long trip, especially if you have kids or those young at heart that want to explore all the towers. The line for the Crown Jewels gets pretty long pretty quickly so I'd hit that first, though the wait is well worth it. Go on a Voyeur tour which leaves every hour from the entrance to get some historical background and spend the rest of the time looking into the displays that they have in all the towers about the stories involved in them.

Until Next Time,

Avery Cropp