London: Tour of the City Center

Since our second day in London was spent out on the outskirts, we opted to see some of the sites that the downtown held. You know, the touristy ones that you hear about. The Steelers game was not until much later in the day, so we donned our gear and made out way out into the crowds. As cool as the sights were, the cheers or boos that our Steelers garb yielded was the best part of it! The post of the actual game will be next...there was just too much to jam into a single post.

London Bridge...my childhood expected more...falling down?

Indoor outdoors, loved the structure

There is a long walkway, "The Queen's Walk", that runs along the River Thames that will connect you to all of the historic bridges, give you a wonderful view of the historic mixed with modern skyline, though busy, it was really nice to stroll along.

Go Steelers and Tower of London

Love

Tower Bridge = very awesome

Panorama of downtown

The Tower of London was the one London "touristy" thing that we were both excited for and willing to pay entry for. It was COMPLETELY WORTH IT. The crown jewels are also housed here, but we did not really care to see them and avoided standing in the really long line to do so. I thought  the armory and torture rooms were absolutely facilitating. There are tours around the property or you can just read your way through. Everything below is within its walls.

Trebuchet anyone? 

We will end up walking stairs like this M A N Y times

I definitely annoyed him for this pict

Make sure to read the explaination 

The rack...no thanks.

London: Day 2

So...the choosing of our trip locale was inspired by the fact that the Steelers were playing there right? So it would just make sense that we would attend the huge pre-game festivities right? It would. And we tried. Desperately. And failed. Miserably. Did you know that there are 4 Regent Streets in London? Did you know that the news sources that we went to for the exact location was wrong? Twice? Yeah. Google failed us on this one. Unfortunately for the soles of our feet, we decided to walk between all of the Regent Streets in our quests, and these streets were R E A L L Y far apart. Fortunately though, we worked off the libations we had enjoyed the day before with the 10+ miles we trekked in and around London. It was quite a fete. We made it to the final Regent Street about 15 minutes after the conclusion of the pep rally, not expecting that it would actually be the right location (or we would have gotten there with a little less pub stopping and sight seeing along the way). Despite this, it worked out to be an awesome walking tour of London, and helped assuage the frustration of failing to find the rally.

Another abbey and the infamous telephone booths

I would want this as my London apartment

Obligatory Beatles homage

Lunch please

Street festival

We enjoyed walking around the expansive and beautiful Regent's Park; it's perfect for a nice and relaxing stroll in nature when you are right smack in the middle of a Metropolis. Think Central Park in NYC...the equivalent. It is a really close walk to Kensington Palace (also not that impressive for a royal palace, but much prettier than Buckingham Palace), which I would recommend that you opt to see if you had to chose between the two palaces. You can actually pay to tour parts of this one. The outer grounds and Kensington Gardens are free and beautiful. They call it "Gardens" but it is also quite a large and beautiful park.

Kensington Palace

Kensington Gardens

Kensington Gardens, Albert Memorial, and Royal Albert Hall

Corner statue of the Albert Memorial

I really liked the gate surrounding the Albert Memorial

The Albert Memorial

Royal Albert Hall, Adam's Bob Dylan homage

Click here for more info about the homage

So in love with my life: My blessed and amazing life

Enjoying the reprieve of resting on the steps

After we definitely missed the pep rally, we had official permission from ourselves to stop trying to find the place. The end of the day turned into a nice slow return home, pub hopping along the way. A perfect end to an actual good day. While it was a bit frustrating that we could not find the pep rally (that we had only found out about the night before and decided to attend), it really led us to an awesome perspective of the city, and fully embraces our objective of being fluid with our plans. We learned this from our first trip.
We have learned something from each of our big trips (this being #3):

• Lesson from Trip #1: Don't be so rigid and regimented with your plans. We went into this trip with airlines, trains, accomodations, and daily itineraries planned. We had objectives for what we "must see" in each city, and it left us exhausted. We pledged to be less planned with the next trip. Next time, just book the airfare in and out, let the rest happens as you want it to (having some general objectives, like what cities you want to accomplish in the given timeframe).
• Lesson from Trip #2: Ok, plan a little bit more than just the airfare and the first and last night's accomodations. We lost A LOT of time and spent a lot of extra money buying train tickets and booking hotels last minute. We did not recognize how much of a money difference there was in pre-booking things, we were not fortunate enough to encounter those "last minute deals" that everyone brags about.
• Lesson from Trip #3: You need a lot more than 8 days to enjoy the lower half of Ireland. And you really need to explore the Scottish Highlands (which we did not know we wanted to do, we did not do, and will be returning to do). The best parts of the trips were far away from the main cities. Actually, every time we stayed in a city, we were ready to go after a day or so, but there was never enough time when we were staying out of the city. Avoid the cities, even if it is your first time to a country. I will definitely talk more about this in the Ireland part of the trip.

Europe 2013: To London We Go!

Oh how we had been looking forward to this trip....SO MUCH. This is our 3rd year in a row of a "big trip", something that we wanted to make an annual thing after our Italy/Austria/Czech Republic/Germany trip. This year was 3 weeks in the British Isles, inspired by the fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers would be playing in London this year. Over the next several blog posts I get to relive  England, Scotland, and Ireland, and share all of their awesomeness with you. It really was a fantastic trip.

Final cheers with American libations are the airport

Excitedly passing the time prior to our departure

Of note, we traveled on British Airway to and from Europe on this trip, and I could not recommend them any more highly. Seriously, coach has enough leg room for Adam (ringing in at 6'4"), complementary good headphones, a soft blanket and actual pillow, along with a full dinner AND breakfast (we took a red-eye) of healthy and actually tasty food. The hourly beverage and snack rounds were nice too, though definitely unnecessary.
Traversing from London-Heathrow to the city was more than we anticipated, as it is actually a 45 minute Tube (London for metro) ride into the city. You could get there more quickly if you wanted to spend the money on a cab or the Heathrow Express train, but we wanted to spend our money elsewhere. Honestly, the ride into the city via the Tube was a nice introduction to the country and city, with much of it being above ground with sites to see. The Tube was really easy to navigate and we found our stop without any issues.

Walking to our accomodations

After ditching our packs and organizing at our place, we very quickly escaped to explore the city. We just wanted to spend the afternoon and evening exploring our vicinity. By the time that we got back out, we were tired, thirsty, and hungry. A few blocks from our place was this AWESOME pub called "Three Stags". They have an awesome draught lineup, inclusive of ciders, and all of their food is organic and locally sourced. I love supporting places like this! The drinks were perfect, the food delicious, and the atmosphere nice and cozy. We will return here later, we were that impressed.

Breakfast/Lunch time

Jet fatigued but enjoying our first British drinks

After a few drinks, delicious food, and a nice rest, we were ready to get out and explore London. We were staying in the Lambeth North neighborhood, and you could not ask for a better locale central to everything in the city.

Random abbey

Love and the British Parliament

Through the next several pictures, you will probably (correctly) guess that the British Parliament was my favorite building. It is massive, impressive, and gorgeous.We ventured across it this afternoon and then came back during the night to see it illuminated by all of its lights. Unfortunately, none of the night pictures came out, but this is definitely a site to see when you come to London. From afar and up close, during the day and especially at night.

River Thames and Parliament

I really liked the Parliament building

Artist working in the park: I loved watching him work, envying his talent

The front of the Parliament building

British Parliament

The ornateness of the building and the fine details of the architecture absolutely enraptured me. We walked around this building for a while.

British Parliament

Westminster Abbey it directly across the street from Parliament, so it is very easy to accomplish two "must sees" in one place. There was a pricy entry fee and a long line for the Abbey, so we opted out of going inside, but it is a beautiful building.

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Gates of Buckingham Palace

I didn't realize it until looking through these pictures, but there are no actual pictures of Buckingham Palace. Honestly, I was not impressed with it at all. It is just a big, boxy, modern building...nothing impressive to look at. The gates though, impressive. As were the guards marching around. I usually love royal buildings, as they are so architecturally complex and beautiful. Not this place and I was really disappointed. I don't know why, I just expected more.  That or we should have stopped here before Parliament and the Abbey, it just paled in comparison.

Up close of the gates

Adam trying to decide on his next drink, the first still untouched

Loving my British cloudy cider

Hello Big Ben

Sunset over Parliament

Happily enjoy life...me and The Eye

After the sunset, the pictures stopped coming out clearly, but we lasted surprisingly late into the evening. We came across a street festival and met an awesome local couple, Mark and Sam, and enjoyed many hours of awesome conversation, tasty hot food, and local beverages. It was a great start to this trip.