Today was another beautiful day in London so we left Shelly and Garett at home and headed to the Tower of London with the four kids. Ryan navigated us down to the Finchley Road Tube station and we took the Metropolitan and Circle lines to get to Tower Hill station. Ryan really wanted to take a more complicated route, but we convinced him to follow his mother's suggestion. After following the crowds into the tower, we let Ryan conduct the tour. The Beefeaters were too busy. We visited the Traitors' Gate, the White Tower, the Bloody Tower, and several other towers. Unfortunately, the line for the Crown Jewels was probably about 2 hours, so we had to skip that. (A good reason to return to London...)
After the Tower we headed to Eat. which is a lunch/sandwich take-away place. Unfortunately, it was about 3pm by then and the place was cleaned out. We followed another suggestion of Ryan's - we ate at Subway. It was mostly the same, except that one of the veggie options next to the lettuce and tomato was corn! None of us tried it though.
After eating we headed for the Tube again. This time we took the Circle and Northern lines to King's Cross station. We wandered around the station a bit until we found the infamous Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 and the trolley cart stuck in the brick wall. The British have taken full advantage of the popularity and have a photographer and an assistant to stage your photo. The assistant will wrap you with a Slytherin or Gryffindor scarf and hold it out in back of you so it looks like it is flying behind you as you run through the wall. Again, the line was about 20 minutes long, so we just took a person-less photo. John's going to photoshop Elizabeth into it.
It gets dark very early in London. You can see the long shadows in the pictures below. Yesterday at Hampstead Heath we noticed the sun was starting to set at 2:15.
All in all, a great day. Poor Shelly and Garett though - they missed all the fun and had to clean the flat while we were gone. In the peace and quiet...hmmm...
Love to all,
Terri
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| Waiting for the changing of the guard |
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| Changing of the guard - Welsh guards |
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| Inside the Tower of London - note the long shadows at 12:22 pm |
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Outside King's Cross Station at 4:46 pm |
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| Platform 9 3/4 - somehow taken without a single person in the frame! |
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