Day 5- Travel Day to London, England

Monday, December 30, 2013

Today was a day that was both sad and exciting. The much anticipated four day trip to London was here, but it was the day I would be leaving my beloved city behind. We woke up around 5:00 a.m. to get our shuttle to the French train station. Surprisingly, it was a very nice and scenic tour of the French and English countryside as we made our way to London under the English Channel, which took around two hours. The country side reminded me of pictures I had seen of Ireland, very green, wet vast farmlands with the cutest little sheep I had ever seen (thousands of them).

{Richard and I enjoying our breakfast on the train ride}

{Leslie drinking the delicious OJ}


After our train ride, we checked into the most beautiful hotel, The Royal Horseguards. It offered the classic London feel of the grand white stone building, beautiful flower arrangements (even in the dead of winter), an adorable door man with a top hat, along with much more. 

{Our BEAUTIFUL Hotel from across the Thames River}

{Getting ready to go to Harrods}

Once we checked into the hotel, we got changed into warmer clothes and rain jackets, and had our door man hail a cab for us to take to Harrods department store.  I have only heard stories about this department store, but I do not think you can quite comprehend the magnitude of this place until you see it in person. The store contains your typical upscale clothing lines that the average person cannot afford, but the best part was the food court and the team rooms.

{Just a few options from the food court}

 

We ate this delicious authentic pizzeria, which is funny because the most popular food choice in London is Italian. As we ate and enjoyed our pizza choices, it was a nice relief to finally understand the people around us and read the menu.  After I ate an entire pizza on my own, we decided to walk around and see all the tea rooms and neat toy stores that were offered there. Since today was our travel day between Paris and London, we decided to walk around London and get a feel for the city. What is nice about London is that everything is very centralized. Once we walked outside of our hotel, we were able to walk to Parliament/Big Ben, Thames river, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace within minutes.

{The view of the London Eye from our hotel}

 

{The first thing that came to my mind the moment when I saw Big Ben was the classic movie- Peter Pan}.

{Classic phone booth picture...a tourist must}

{The London Tube}

{ The more modern version of the Double-Decker bus}

{Trafalgar Square}

{That night we walked to a classic London pub called Sherlock Holmes}

{First night I had the classic chicken pot pie}