Let it begin:
London, England
On our first full day in London, Howie and I bought a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. We figured that would be the best way to see the city. It was fun! We got to see a lot. Here is us on the bus:
Here is Howie on a bridge over the Thames River.
Big Ben!
Us in front of Buckingham Palace.
Howie in front of Westminster Abbey.
Me in a red phone booth that smelled of urine.
One of the things I was most excited about was seeing "Wicked"! The second night in London we went to it. Unfortunately, I was still trying to adjust to the time difference and I kept dozing off. But I still loved it!
We had to visit the Tower of London! It's full of so much history.
One of the Beefeaters let us take a picture with him. These guys are so cool. Beefeaters are the guards at the Tower of London. They safeguard the crown jewels and also work as tour guides. Our tour guide's name was Barney. Very funny ol' Chap.
The Tower Bridge.
Story time! This is a picture of our tour guide on our "Jack the Ripper Walk".
He was a Jack the Ripper fanatic. Seriously. This guy studied it through and through. Funny thing about this tour guide though is that by day he is a Beefeater, by night he is a Jack the Ripper tour guide. He also works part time with the local police department pulling dead bodies out of the Thames River. Very glamorous life! So, he goes from talking about murder and decapitations at the Tower of London, to talking about the gruesome murders of Jack the Ripper at night, and then working part time pulling dead bodies out of a river! I don't get it! How does he ever sleep at night?! We learned quite a bit from him. He is thoroughly convinced that Jack the Ripper was INDEED caught and thrown into a looney bin. And, contrary to popular belief, he was not a man with a medical background or a man of great wealth.
That's just his opinion though. Very interesting.
Leeds Castle - Kent, England
On our last day in London we got a rental car and headed out to Kent, England. Our only reason for going there was to see Leeds Castle. I had heard about it but I had no idea what I was in for! The grounds to this castle were gorgeous. Absolutely the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen for a castle. It took us a good 20 minutes just to walk to the castle, but we enjoyed every bit of it.
Here we are at the actual castle. Just beautiful.
After you tour the castle they have a huge maze on the grounds that you can go and do. Howie and I decided to give it a shot. Plus, if you got all the way through the maze you got to go down into the "Grotto".
We tried to do the maze together and it wasn't working so, then we made it competitive and split up to see who could get to the center first.
We were still unsuccessful.
Luckily for us, there were two grounds workers in the center helping people find their way through. They gave us some help because we clearly needed it.
My pictures I took in the Grotto didn't turn out very good. The Grotto was weird and really quite eery. It was made out of river rock and tile (i think). Here are a couple of pictures that turned out semi-ok.
Canterbury, England
I loved Canterbury! Our next stop was Canterbury so we could see Canterbury Cathedral.
This cathedral blew me away. It's amazing on the inside!
Dover, England
We had to stop in Dover to see the white cliffs that it's famous for. We also went and saw Dover Castle.
Another reason why I was excited about Dover is because my good friend Jen was able to meet up with us there! Jen moved to England last September for school and we were all sad when she left. It was good to see her again! Thanks for taking that 5 hour round-trip train ride just for me Jen!
We were able to tour the Secret Wartime Tunnels. Those were very cool to see.
Surprisingly, this is the only picture I got of the white cliffs.
Avebury, England
Next stop was to Avebury. Since no one had any interest in visiting Stonehenge we decided to visit a different famous stone circle. This one was pretty neat to see because there is a town in the center of the circle. Plus, you can go up and touch the stones, where as Stonehenge you can only get as close as like 30 feet.
Bath, England
We made a quick stop in Bath, England to see the Roman Bath and Pump Rooms. I've been to Bath before, but Howie hasn't so we had to go. I knew Howie would love them and he did!
York, England
One of my favorite stops folks! We really liked York. Howie and I ventured out on our own and saw a lot that the city had to offer. First thing we went to was Clifford's Tower.
There is a very sad story about this tower. To make a long story short, in the year 1190 a bunch of Jews baricaded themselves inside the tower to escape their persecutors. Rather than renounce their faith and die by the hands of their enemies they decided they'd rather kill each other. So, they did. They say the walls of Clifford's Tower now runs with their blood and if you look closely at the front of the building you'll notice it does have a pinkish tint to it! Freaky!
There were amazing views of York from the tower.
We saw the Fairfax House.
We went on a river cruise down the Ouse River.
And last, but certainly not least, we went on a Ghost Walk! This was our tour guide:
He was such a good story teller! We really enjoyed him as our guide. He's the one that told us the story about Clifford's Tower. He even had a good evil laugh. Muahahahahaha!
3 comments:
looks beautiful and like so much fun! i had a friend who took a similar trip and it took her months to get it all up on her blog lol. thanks for sharing!
Wow!! Such awsome pics! Its so gorgeous there! I have family in England and Ive never been. I want to now!! lol Thanks for sharing!
WOW! All I can say is WOW!!! I was fascinated with this entire trip. The only place I've ever been in England has been London. I don't know why I loved Big Ben the most, but I did. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's the same clock that you see in a lot of movies, like one of my favorites, "Mary Poppins". :) Your tour guide for the Jack the Ripper thing sounds really interesting, in kind of a scary way! I'm so glad you had such a good time. I want to visit Bath now. That maze looks phenomenal too! A few Sundays ago, I gave a lesson on patriarchal blessings. One of the things that was mentioned in the lesson was how so many Europeans had mazes constructed in their gardens, and how some of them still do. In the lesson it was suggested to talk about how much easier it would be for a person to go throughout the entire maze & make it to the end with no problems if there was someone else sitting in a tree way above the maze so that they could see the entire thing as a whole. The point being, we're the ones walking through the mazes of our lives, when the Lord is the one up in the tree, guiding us because he can see the big picture. I thought that was really, really interesting. I just thought I'd share that, seeing as you've been through probably one of the largest mazes in the world! :)
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