London - Day 1

I boarded my hop-on hop-off bus this morning to begin my siteseeing of London.  First stop was the Tower of London (which isn't actually a tower at all).  This place really deserves a much longer visit than I gave it, but as I have so many things to see in three days, I did a flying visit of the torture chamber, got some up close photos with a Royal Guard and had a look at the crown jewels.  The size of the diamonds, sapphires and emeralds in the crowns was just incredible.  Unfortunately, photos of the crown jewels were not allowed.

Next stop was the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.  England is the only place I have been to where you have to pay to get into a church!!!  £20!!!!  Fortunately, I had pre-purchased a tourist pass which gives me free entry into a number of places and Westminster Abbey was one of them.  Photos were not allowed inside, but let me say this place is immense.  It would be quite easy to get lost in there.  It houses the tomb of the unknown soldier and is filled with amazing statues and tombs.

I then headed over to St Paul's Cathedral but it was not included in my visitor pass and at £18, I decided to give it a miss.

I walked across the Milennium Bridge to the Globe Theatre.  The 40 minute tour was very interesting, giving a history of the three Globe Theatres that have existed on the site.

It doesn't sound like I did a lot, but I was on the go for 8 hours and the tour bus was quite slow due to heavy traffic.  I look forward to Day 2 tomorrow.