Days 10 and 11 - London

I am combining days 10 and 11 into one blog, since there's not a whole lot to say about day 10. That day we left York early and started our drive south to London. We really didn't do any stopping along the way, unfortunately. I had hoped for a detour to Oxford, but it was not to be. We were all ready to just get to London and settle in for the last leg of our trip. When we finally reached the outskirts of London, driving got very interesting. We missed several turns, did several u-turns, and probably wasted about an hour trying to find our hotel. Dad quickly decided that we were going to turn in the rental car as quickly as possible and just rely on the buses and the underground for transportation. That turned out to be a great decision, because the London drivers were crazy! So we unloaded the rental car at the rather unattractive hotel and headed for Heathrow Airport to get rid of the car. That consumed a large portion of our afternoon, but we did finally make it to downtown London and see a few sights before crashing for the evening. We had dinner in Piccadilly Circus at a place known for their ribs and American cuisine. It was good, but nowhere near as tasty as The Hole in the Wall in York. Then we decided to take the bus and see the major sights by night. We rode through Trafalgar Square to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, then changed buses to pass St. Paul's Cathedral and walk around briefly at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Everything was all lit up, and it was a lovely evening, not too cold. Unfortunately, that didn't last.
When we got up the next morning, we were anticipating nice warm weather like we'd had the last couple of days. So we all took our lightweight jackets as we headed out. That was a mistake, because between the light mist, the cold, and the strong winds, we FROZE! We didn't let that stop us from seeing the sights though. Our first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. It is an amazing cathedral, which was unfortunately partially concealed by scaffolding. It seems that scaffolding followed us to a lot of the sights we visited on this trip. By the way, the statue outside St. Paul's Cathedral (see photo below) is where Julie Andrews sang "Feed the Birds" in Mary Poppins. At St. Paul's, Mom and Papa looked around on the main floor while Dad, Ben, and I took the 434 stairs up to the Whispering Gallery (which put us very close to the beautiful mosaics on the interior of the dome ceiling) and the Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery, both of which are on the outside of the dome and gave us the opportunity to see incredible panoramic views of the city. It took us about an hour to climb all the way up, see the sights outside, and come back down. It was worth it, though my legs were incredibly shaky for a while afterwards.
From there we headed to the Tower Bridge Exhibit, where we got to go into the two towers, learn about how Tower Bridge was created and how the drawbridge works, and walk across the pedestrian walkways at the top for more amazing views of the Thames and the city.
Even though it was bitter cold outside, we were not about to miss the opportunity to see the Tower Bridge drawbridge raise that afternoon. So we quickly loaded up on hot drinks and grabbed a spot by the railing to watch as the bridge raised to allow the HMS Northumberland to pass. This may not seem to be that big of deal, but the Tower Bridge drawbridge only raises about once a day, so we were excited to see it.

From there we headed into the Tower of London, where we saw one of the guards feeding the ravens. Legend says if the ravens leave the tower grounds, London will fall, so the ravens' wings are clipped to keep them in. We waited in line for the torture exhibit in the Bloody Tower, which was not all that great, and then went to view the Crown Jewels of England - they're incredible! After a brief walk through the artillery and arms exhibit in White Tower, we were all ready for dinner.

After dinner we decided to split up. Dad and Papa needed to do a "recon" to make sure they knew how to get to Gatwick Airport by tube/train on Friday, and Mom and I needed to make a trip to Harrod's. Okay, "need" may be too strong a word, but it was the perfect opportunity. Ben went with us, and we spent about half an hour exploring just a small portion of that amazing store. I must say, I like Harrod's better when it's all decorated for Christmas and it has Christmas ornaments available for purchase. But even in spring it is unlike any store I've ever been to in the States.Finally we headed back to the hotel for a snack of Krispy Kreme donuts (Dad and Papa found them in the tube station) and a good night's sleep.