Monday in London

Since I took this week as holiday (vacation), we spent last weekend shopping for necessities. On Saturday, we drove the 1.5 hours through 999 traffic circles to Milton Keynes and visited the downtown shopping center Poundland (Lori said that the U.K. needs a "Dollar Store" and shortly after we found a Poundland!) to buy clothes hangers, hand soap, etc...  We stopped at the nearby IKEA and had lunch (Swedish meatballs, of course) and picked up an inexpensive reading lamp and some decorations for the apartment. The IKEA store was huge and there was a ASDA (Wal-Mart) Supercentre next door. We wish this shopping area was closer. Oxford only has smaller stores.

View Larger Map

Matthew enjoying his Full English Breakfast.

Monday morning, we drove to the Thornhill Park-and-Ride in Oxford to catch the Oxford Tube to London Victoria. We bought a Tube 12 pass that gives us 12 adult trips (one way) to & from London. Matthew travels free. The pass will give us three round trips and is good for one year.  There was a lorry (truck) accident on the M40 so the bus driver took the back roads. The 1.5 hour trip took 3 hours. Even though the bus is very comfortable, we couldn't wait to get off. We had a full English breakfast at a little cafe next to the Big Bus Tours office. The breakfast consisted of ham, sausage, hash browns, baked beans, brown toast with butter and jam, cooked mushrooms, grilled tomato, and an egg, We skipped the black pudding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding); I was warned that it is a standard breakfast item here. Lori and I had some strong coffee and Matthew had still water.

Our coach is arriving at the Thornhill Park and Ride.

Matthew on the Oxford Tube.

We crossed the street and bought our Big Bus Tour tickets from the very pleasant tour guide on the sidewalk. We purchased the 48 hour ticket that gave us unlimited hop-on-hop-off bus privileges, the Thames River boat tour, and 4 walking tours. We spent the entire afternoon riding the tour bus through the City of Westminster, City of London, and the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Our heroes on the tour bus.

The Wellington Arch. The Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington

We had to get off the bus for a while. Here I am at the Baker Street bus stop with  Sherlock Holmes. Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum is in the background.

Lord Horatio Nelson defeated Napoleon's fleet at sea.

Big Ben clock tower at the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the tower. It rings on the hour only. The Chimes of Westminster rings every 15 minutes. 

St. Paul's Cathedral. Notice all of the police vehicles. There was a protest re: the economy going on the other side of the building.

Westminster Abbey.

After riding around for several hours, we left the bus and caught a famous black cab to Harrod's. The store is huge and has everything that anyone could want. Some of the prices were outrageous but others were reasonable. If the dollar were stronger in relation to the pound sterling, we might have purchased more.

Off the Big Bus...

....and into a very clean and roomy taxi cab.

Lori riding the Egyptian escalator in Harrod's.

At the bottom of the Egyptian escalator, we found this memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.

Tea at Harrod's

After a short cab ride, we are back to the Oxford Tube and uneventful trip home.

View Larger Map