Highlights: St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, Crown Jewels, City Cruise Boat Tour Big Bus, Hyde Park
Thursday, June 13th – We decided to use the tube as our source of transportation today, since traveling on the Big Bus meant sitting in traffic for mulitple hours.
Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral. We took the Red/Central line from Queesway to St. Paul’s station (20 min – 9th stop). It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but the beauty lies within. There are chairs in the middle where you can rest and admire the cathedral.
It was fortunate we sat for a while because we needed all of our energy to climb the 500+ stairs to the top.
But once you get to the balcony, the view is totally worth the climb.
You never know what you might see around London. We spotted a double decker bus full of women in their skibbies! It was a cold rainy day, but that didn’t stop these Curvey Kate advertisers.
When Connor made it to the top of the cathedral, he remembered that he’s not too fond of heights. Fortunately there was a staff member there to talk him through it and share his stories about how he conquered his fear of heights.
When you head back inside, the climb continues to the very top, where you can look down through a window and see the tiny people in the cathedral below.
From St. Paul’s, it’s a short 20 min walk to Tower of London. In case you were wondering, it is still raining.
Once we arrived at the Tower, it was time for lunch. There are not many food options nearby, so we chose a cafe called EAT. The cafe was full, no seats, and the food was nothing to write home about. Now, on to the Tower.
Once inside the kids needed a quick break from the rain.
As you walk around inside the Tower, there are plenty of small exhibitions to tour. You can try on a hat made of solid brass.
Or, you can get caught taking pictures with the royal crowns (no pictures allowed) and get scolded by the security officer for “disrespecting the Queen”.
There was an extra special longer line for the official crown jewels. We had seen our share and decided to skip.
There is even a small guard shack out front where you can witness a smaller scale version of the changing of the guard. Kate had to get a picture with the guard.
Our plan for the day included the ArcelorMittal Orbit Slide, but be sure to call before you go. Each day that we called, the slide was closed either for rain or a malfunction.
Since we had purchased a 2-day Big Bus pass, it included a ride on the City Cruise boat. One of the pickup stations was outside of the Tower, so we rode it down the river to “Big Ben”.
You can see plenty of sights from a distance on the boat; The Shard, Tower Bridge, Shakespeare’s Globe, Millenium Bridge, Egyptian Tower, London Bridge (apparently the original was disassembled and moved to Utah) London Eye (which we deemed too expensive to ride), St. Paul’s and “Big Ben”.
There are also Lion busts along the river wall, which inspired the saying “When the Lion’s drink, London sinks”.
Unfortunately, our view of the House of Parliament/Big Ben was primarily blocked with scaffolding.
After disembarking, we walked along the water toward Trafalgar Square, passing a very nice palace right on the water.
Next stop National Gallery. Admission was free, although they do ask for donations. There’s also an optional audio tour you can purchase.
We encouraged the kids to get their picture in front of the lions.
However, the older kids just wanted a selfie in front of the Lion’s butt. Connor decided that the rest of the trip, he was going to cover his face for all my pictures.
It was after 6pm and most of the sights were closed, so we headed home for dinner; pizza and Amorino gelato.
In order to pack light for our 16 day trip, everyone had 3 days of clothing. This meant it was that point in the trip where we started our nightly laundry routine. We learned two important things. First, do small amounts of laundry often, because the washers are very small. Second, dryers are rare, so be sure to have something to lay out your clothes for overnight drying.
I made a grocery run while the kids enjoyed a movie. Good opportunity for them to get some rest from the very active days of walking.
Since we had arrived back home very late the night before, Kate hadn’t had a chance to try out her new skates from Hamley’s. Fortunately Hyde park was walking distance away. She wanted to wear them around the city all day, but glad we were able to avoid that.
Hyde park also had bikes to rent, but we didn’t get a chance to take advantage of them on this trip.
Gleitz Well Traveled 