Our first stop was Westminster Abbey, which was the only thing we paid to see. We received a free audio guide and explored the entire Abbey. I think the most amazing part of Westminster to me was Queen Elizabeth I's tomb, it was so overwhelming and crazy to think that she was actually buried there, along with Mary Queen of Scots of course haha. Call me a nerd or whatever but I was so excited to see her tomb :) We also saw Charles Darwin's tomb (kind of ironic being buried in a church huh?) and many many other monarchs and influential people. It was one of those things that we just had to see, SO glad we paid practically $20 to get in, the only downside was that we couldn't take pictures inside, oh well. After Westminster we headed to the Portobella street market. This was my second favorite thing we did in London. It was basically a GIANT flee/ farmers/ vintage market that stretched down this extremely long street. There was soooo much cool vintage jewelry and clothes along with crepes, homemade bakery, artisan cheeses, and new aspiring designers. It was a young girls PARADISE! I was seriously walking around gaping, drooling and running into people haha I could have spent all day there, but we had SO much more to see in London.
We hopped on the tube and headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We didn't explore the museum too extensively but there was a lot of giant ceramic sculptures, GIANT rugs, and other historic art. Pretty cool but we decided to head over to the British Museum and check out the Rosetta stone and Mummy display! Standing in front of the Rosetta stone was another one of those surreal moments where I was like, whoa this the real deal RIGHT in front of me. SO COOL! The mummy collection was pretty wicked as well, lots of mummy caskets and giant sculptures right out of Egypt haha
We were right next to Oxford street, so we decided to check it out. Oxford street is basically this insanely long street with tons of stores like H&M, Aldo, New Look, Primark, and other fashion chain stores. I swear there was about 15 H&Ms! Primark is a British clothing store that offers in style clothes for very reasonable prices. So basically, sweat shop clothes that young people eat up regardless of the environmental and moral dilemmas we face now days hahaha so naturally we wanted to check out the one in London which was said to be HUGE. By the time we walked basically 15 blocks down the street to see it, I no longer cared. When we got inside it was a zoo of crazed people buying cheap junk. I was rather disgusted actually, it was kind of like a Walmart on a Saturday, pure insanity.
After the Oxford street experience, we decided to head back to the hostel and get some shut eye. At the end of Saturday we had the 'tube' down to a science and were champs of navigating London. Sunday morning we got up, grabbed some breakfast from the hostel, checked out and headed to the bus station where we kept our backpacks all day. Then we walked to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Overall it was pretty cool to see the guards and see some royal police horses, but there were sooo many people that we couldn't see much of the actual changing of the guard. We snapped some pictures then headed to Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. Where we just marveled, took pictures and moved on to the next destination, which was the London Bridge. We walked down the side of the River Thames closer to the bridge. Again it was another one of those surreal moments to actually see the bridge in real life when you see it so much in movies, books, and history. The Tower of London was really close by so we took some pictures of the outside and decided not to go inside because it was pretty pricey, sadly :(
To sum up the rest of the day we stopped by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, crossed the Millennium Bridge to St.Paul's Cathedral. We then took the tube to the National Gallery where we some of Vincent Van Gogh's, Michelangelo's and many other famous artists paintings. Really really cool! Then we walked to the Piccadilly circus, not much was going on so we headed to Regent's park, which was absolutely beautiful. Giant willow trees, Green grass, tons of flowers, with birds and bunnies everywhere it was ridiculously picturesque! A couple blocks away was Backers street which we just happened to stumble upon. We ate some traditional British food and took pictures of the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the Beatles Museum. We couldn't go in because they were closed sadly :(
We were pretty much exhausted from running around London for almost 24 hours so we decided to head to the bus station to wait for our bus back to Glasgow. I actually got a sufficient amount of sleep on the ride back because I snatched a window seat.
the only area of Westminster that we could take pictures
Outside Westminster!
sweet bikers
Portabello Market!
droooooool
I wanted it all....
yummmm
I was basically ceasing up right about here
Kelsey and Emily
beautiful colors
Victoria and Albert Museum
The British Museum
Rosetta Stone!
Changing of the Guard
Buckingham Palace :)
Parliament and Big Ben
River Thames
The London Eye
Kelsey, Emily and I
The Globe Theatre
St. Paul's Cathedral
nerd
St. Paul's Cathedral
Regents Park
Spinach pie with Yorkshire pudding and gravy
Overall our trip was a 150% success and we got to see everything we wanted and more! Our feet were killing us by the end but it was totally worth it! I will DEFIANTLY be back to London some day in my life, its way too amazing of a place to only go once in your life :)
