Sometimes things don't go as planned.
If you're planning on studying abroad, or even just taking a vacation, and you're headed to London, or any where else for that matter, I can't stress enough planning ahead. We waited until Friday morning (After we had arrived) to book a hostel - bad idea! Apparently the weekend we visited happens to be students "spring break" there. D'oh!
We did manage to find a hotel though, and picked up our London Passes and Travel cards before venturing forth into the city.
Tips to Visiting London
---If you're planning on visiting London - plan to stay there for a couple of days.
---Take the first day you arrive to check into your hostel, get settled in, and visit sites that AREN'T covered in your London Pass.
---The London Pass is a card that allows you free admission to around 70-80 sites in London, but a "day" pass, only works from the first time you use it to the end of that night when attractions close - not for 24 hours. At about 35 british pounds for the first day, its a waste to start using it around 1pm in the afternoon (it's around 55 british pounds for a two day pass). It IS worth the money, if you leave yourself enough time in the day to see numerous sites.
---Get a travel card! A daily or multi-day travel card will save you money after TWO trips on the underground - and the underground saves you an incredible amount of time!! But - depending on where you're traveling, you'll only need areas 1 and 2 of the 6 sections that the underground covers. Look into this when you get to the city!!!
On our way to picking up our London Passes, we passed Buckingham Palace. We weren't lucky enough to catch the changing of the guards, but it was still an incredible sight.
After picking up our London Passes, we headed straight to Big Ben, the House of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, Westminster Abbey has slightly odd hours and it had closed 15 minutes earlier (as its still in use today). You can't take pictures inside of Westminster, so you'll just have to take my word that it has some of the most incredible sites in terms of tombs, graves, and statues I have ever seen (we managed to get in early saturday morning).
We also visited the Jewel Tower near by, which was originally designed as a private treasury to the king. The original roof is still intact today.
By far, my most favorite part of the trip was the Tower of London. Contrary to popular belief, the Tower of London is not, in fact, a Tower, but is rather an entire fort where the soveriegnty of England used to reside. From the number of towers, chapels, and stories housed in this famous fort, I could have spent all day there (we did spend about 3-4 hours there). It also holds the crown jewels - an entire building dedicated to highly guarded glass display cases of the the crowns, coronation rings, orbs, scepters, and other odd, assortments of items owned by the Crown (Example: an entire dining set made of gold used by previous Kings and Queens of England). Again, this (and the chapel) is a place where you can't take pictures, but you can pretty much everywhere else in the fort.
If you get the chance to go to the Tower of London, it is in your best interest to follow one of the tours. "But why, Heather? Tours are boring.. the tour guides just ramble...it's so long... if I go, I feel obligated to stay for the entirety..."I hear you - I do. I thought the same thing, and we almost skipped the tour. I'm glad we didn't.
Firstly, the tour guides are part of the Queen's Army - In order to become a tour guide, they have to be part of the army for at least 20 years. The outfits may look funny, but it's their ceremonial garbs, and the metals on them are real. Our tour guide was incredible: fun, entertaining, spoke with and played off of members of the crowd, and he told stories about the towers and the chapel that gave me chills.
Not only was he incredibly good at his job, but the three of us stop to speak with him after the tour and got our pictures taken with him - and it was such an honor to be able to. I will go ahead and claim that the Tower of London is by far the most incredible historical site I've been able to see to date, but what I will never forget about it is him.
The plans for the rest of the weekend got a little jumbled, as the coach/trains we were planning to take up to York and Edinburough took longer than we thought and were more expensive then we expected. This wouldn't have been as big a deal as it turned out to be, except the cold that I had before leaving and the stress of running around a new city rapidly deteriorated my health, cause me to end my trip early and head home saturday evening instead of sunday evening.
Luckily, I'm almost fully recovered - and just in time for my trip to Wales this weekend!
Cheers!
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