A view of the Clock Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
A view of the Clock Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
The walking tours are run by an outfit called London Walks. They conduct a wide variety of tours in and around London. We did four tours with them during our visit and found them interesting, educational and fun.
Our tour group for the Westminster tour. The bald man with the racing stripes on his sleeve is Tom, our guide.
The tour took us from the Houses of Parliament, past Westminster Abbey, through some back streets and alleys to St. James Park, and ended at Trafalgar Square, which was all torn up for reconstruction as a more pedestrian-friendly environment.
Another view of the Clock Tower.
The Chairman Pub.
St. James Park, looking west toward Buckingham Palace.
Looking east through St. James Park.
A guard outside St. James Palace.
Same guard - he isn't going anywhere for awhile.
After the tour we walked north to Leicester Square and then west to Piccadilly Circus, where we had lunch at a chain restaurant called Garfunkles. By the way, we succeeded in avoiding all the American chain restaurants while we were there - there were McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and others on almost every corner. The depressing thing about that is, that after eating at two pizza places while we were there, I realized that Pizza Hut probably had the best pizza in town. How sad.
Piccadilly Circus, with the statue of Eros.
After lunch we decided to finish our bus tour so we hopped another tour bus. This one had taped guides in place of the live guide, which wasn't nearly as interesting. We saw a lot of the same things as on the first tour, so I'm not sure it was worth doing.
I have no idea what this was, but we saw it from the bus.
Included in the bus fare was a ticket for a sightseeing boat ride on the Thames. The boats left from several piers along the bus route, so we hoped to catch one of the boats from the tour. Of course, we kept arriving at the piers two minutes after the boat left. We finally jumped off at the Westminster tube station and rushed across the bridge to the Waterloo Pier, right under the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel that shows up in many of these pictures).
South bank of the Thames, just upstream of the London Eye, seen from the boat.
The Houses of Parliament from the boat.
A view of the Thames from the boat.
A bridge from the boat.
The Millennium Footbridge from the boat.
Another view of the Millennium Footbridge, also known as the Wobbly Bridge because when it was first opened it
swayed from the weight of people walking across it.
Nestled in among other buildings is a modern reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
The London Bridge from the boat.
The cruiser HMS Belfast. Tours available (we didn't).
The Tower Bridge from the boat.
Another view of the Tower Bridge.
The Tower of London from the boat.
See photos from our first day in London
See photos from our third day in London
