Squiceland Day 12 - London Day 2

Day 12 - London - April 12, 2017

This was the backyard for our airbnb.  It turned out to be a great spot.  As I mentioned earlier, because we were able to park our car on the street and pay for a full day of parking we loaded our luggage into the trunk and crossed our fingers that it would still be there at the end of the day.

Our place was through the basement door.

I love these London townhomes.

I needed a picture of the tube map to help us get around.

We took the tube to the British Museum.  Apparently it was a school holiday.  It was packed and we had to wait a long time to get through security to get into the museum.

The Rosetta stone.

Murals from Egyptian temples.

Parts of a Greek Temple.

More carvings from the Acropolis.

Ancient terracotta pigs deserve kisses.

I don't recall what this is a photo of, but I don't have enough photos of Lyla smiling, so here she is.

We found My Old Dutch Pancake House that had these delicious crepe-like sweet and savory pancakes.  It was delicious.

After the British Museum we made our way to the Charles Dickens Museum.  They had lots of artifacts and things of his and from his era.

Doin' the laundry.

Fuzzy tube selfie.

Our last stop was at the London Eye.  We had been debating whether or not to go up in the wheel or not.  It's pretty pricey for such a short ride, but we are suckers.  We didn't have a ton of time and when we got there there was a line that was at least a couple of hours long.  I decided to splurge for the express tickets, but I still had to wait 45 minutes in the ticket line and another 30-40 minutes in line for the wheel itself.

Some views from the eye.

Once we got off the eye, we had to hurry to the tube station to make our way back to our car.

Still time for a few last photos.

We were sad to leave London.

We had an evening flight to Reykjavik, then we actually stayed in the exact same airport hotel that we stayed in 1 week ago.

Tomorrow: we have one last encore day in Iceland before we continue our journey home.

Squiceland Day 11 - London Day 1

Day 11 - London - April 11, 2017

Today we adventured as true Londoners.

Alison is walking in a very controlled manner.

Lots of photos on this trip with funny faces.  Lyla was often grumpy, but she was almost always up for a funny face photo.

We visited Westminster Abbey.  We also visited Westminster when we visited in August 2016, but we were so rushed that we felt like we didn't get to appreciate, admire and really enjoy it.  Westminster is chock full of amazing monuments and graves.  This visit we listened to the full audio tour and loved visiting the graves of so many famous scientists, authors, royalty and martyrs.

No photos inside the Abbey, so we had to settle with loads of photos around the outside.

Big Ben peaking through.

Amazing. Britain's oldest door.  Who keeps track of these things? 

This was Alison's phone background for like a year.

The Abbey.  Again with Big Ben peaking through (technically the Elizabeth Tower as Big Ben is the bell inside).

Such a beautiful Parliament Building.

We arrived in London a couple of weeks after a terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge where the attacker drove a car into a crowd of people on the bridge.  This was a makeshift memorial for the victims.

We love utilizing public transport when we visit big cities.  Instead of buying a tube pass today, we had a bus pass.  We caught a bus right by Westminster Abbey and grabbed the seats in the front row of the top level.

We had to catch another bus to get us to the Tower Bridge.

The beautiful Tower Bridge.

I don't know why that guy is wearing the mask.  He must have thought we were in Mexico.

From Britain's oldest door to Britain's smallest door.  This one is just Lyla's size.

You can see the shard off to the left.

Here we see the gherkin and the cheese grater.

We took a tour up into the Tower Bridge.

Looking through the glass floor.

Photos in front of a double decker bus are a must when in London.

We visited St. Paul's Cathedral, but it was going to close in like 20 minutes, so we decided not to pay the entrance fee and instead just walked around the cathedral.

After St. Paul's we walked to the National Gallery of Art.  Above is Whistlejacket by George Stubbs.

Monet.

Van Gogh. Long Green Grass with Butterflies.  On a side note, if you love Van Gogh, then I cannot recommend the film Loving Vincent enough.  The entire film is animated with paintings done in his style.  More than 65,000 paintings.

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.

Thumb's up for the big thumb.

Yet another picture with the Elizabeth Tower.

Pizza at Garfunkel's.

This phone booth smelled like pee.

One last bus to take us home to our airbnb.  Ada has embraced life as a Londoner.

Tomorrow: More London tourism.