London- Day 2

  London, United Kingdom
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

This morning I woke up at a ridiculous hour...I think it was something like 5:30 so I wasted a bit of time till it was time to go down and get breakfast (it came with the hostel). Not super fantastic but reasonable enough. At breakfast I met a fantastic girl from America who was in London on her way to Lithuania to dance. We decided to spend the day exploring together as we were both interested in checking out the same places. So after freshening up we met in the lobby and headed off. 



We took the underground to St Paul's Cathedral, the first place we wanted to visit. It costs 8 pounds to get in but it was worth it because it was stunning. It was one of my favourite churches of the trip. Apparently only weeks before the entire cathedral had finished being refurbished so it was fresh and sparkled with gold.
We decided to take the hike 300+ stairs to get to the Whispering Gallery which is halfway up the dome. It was a hike and it felt like it went on forever, around and around in a circle.
It was a lovely place to just sit and chill out though. We then took the quite daunting stairs up to the top of the dome. (If you're afraid of heights this can be a little bit of a challenge, just don't look down).



The view from the top of the dome was awesome. You could see right across London even though it was a fairly overcast day. I was able to get some great pics all the way to the London Eye.

We then headed back out onto the street and grabbed some lunch at Pret-a-Manger, a place where they have lots of sandwiches and stuff. 





We then headed on a walk through the city to the Tower Birdge and Tower of London, which are pretty much right next to each other. It's a huge place so if you really want to see most of it, it would take at least 3 or 4 hours, which is I think how long we were there for.
We started by walking around the outside wall which was kinda cool and it led into all these little rooms which had jewels and things on display.
We got a great photo taken with the guards and Beefeaters. We all had a good laugh about it at the time. The younger guards then proceeded to follow us for the rest of our visit. They were always right behind us. very strange...




After exploring the tower of London we decided to head back to the hostel. First walking along to Thames to catch the sunset and take some great pics. It was actually a nice walk and we got to see it bit of daily life...
That night we headed to a chinese rastaurant around the corner from the hostel. Bayswater has alot of great little restaurants in this area that for London prices are so cheap. It was a really yummy dinner....only 5 pounds all up!
We didn't last to long before we headed back top crash for the night. Still getting used to these weird time changes...








COSTS:

10.50P- Tower of London entry
4.90- Underground pass (daily)
8P- Entry to St Paul's Cathedral
5P- Lunch
5P- Dinner
6P- souvenirs