London

For a larger selection of photos go to: https://goo.gl/photos/7sLVqK4vFrr8otQy7

Still a bit behind in being able to upload photos.

Josh says:

London was really nice a little cold and very big. We arrived in London after a 3hr train ride. The first day we went to Harrods which is a very expensive shop. In the shop we looked at the food part and the toy part. Then we went to the Buckingham Palace and took a lot of photos. Then watched the guests of some party come out. After that we went Hamselis is very big toy shop. After we went to Hamselis we went to M&M world. 

The next day we went to the Tower Of London, which was nothing like I thought it would be like like. I thought it would be a tower. It was ok the history was nice and there was a show that you heard people talk about  why they  would capture the tower. In the end the peasants won I was right :). If you read the information in the castle it tells you. We also looked at the crown jewels which were quite nice. Then we went to explore the walls and go and see all the armour and weapons in the main part. After that we went to the Tower Bridge (which is the tallest bridge in London).Which was tall and cool as you could see the cars below you at certain parts. After the bridge we went H.M.S Belfast an ex Navy ship. It was used from D-Day to the Korean war. It was cool seeing how the crew lived and how the ship operated. Then we went to the St Peters Cathedral which was good.  

The next day we went to Westminster Abbey but first saw Big Ben and Parliament. Unfortunately you had to be an English citizen to go up Big Ben. Westminster Abbey was amazing so big and so much history. Saw the chair the Kings and Queens wear crowned in. Were the kings and Queens got burried. Then we went to Churchills bunker. It was cool, if you wanted you could spend the whole day just reading about him. But as I'm not a big fan of Churchills I didn't care. Then went to the Royal Horse Museum which was ok. The cool thing was you could dress up as an army man, royal guards and another one. The actual museum was OK but not the best. After we finished we saw the horses changing which was cool. Then we went to the Natural History Museum. We spent the whole time in the earthquakes and volcano part which was OK. Then we hurried to the Dinosaur part and just finished when the museum started to close. 

The next day we started with the changing of the guards. We were at the start of it as you could see then getting ready to go to Buckingham Palace. Then we went across the river to see another group get ready to leave. After that me and dad went to the guards museum and the girls went to the Mews which is where they kept the horse. Guards museum which talked about all the guard regiments and what they wore. It was very good, talking about what the guards have fought in and stuff like that. Then we met each other at the science  museum. It was ok we didn't see much of it as we saw a IMAX which is a 3D movie on a giant screen. The movie we saw was about the ice age and it was very good. After the that we went to the Imperial War Museum. there was a exhibition about WW1 which was very very good. The rest of the museum was about how conflict affected people. So it had stuff about WW2, 911, ISL, The nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, terrorist attacks, how spies work, SAS and riots in Ireland. It was good never been to a museum like that before. 

The next day we went to Harry Potter world which was amazing. You got to see where they filmed, got to fly on a broom and drank butter bear which was horrible. There was also behind the sceen stuff like how the artist worked and lots more.        

Sorry the images are not on the blog but we are in Scotland with only a couple of days left. The Wifi is not good so they are not going to be on the blog until we get back. 

Alicia says:
In London we saw, Buckingham palace, Harry Potter world which was awesome, Harrods which is a expensive shop that sells lots of thing from toys to food. We also saw the changing of the gaurds and horses, the London bridge and the Tower Bridge. Some other thing that we did was we went to M&M world. We also went to the Tower of London which had all kinds of uses like a jail, fort and in the Tower of London it has the crown jewels the ceremonial crown and the state crown. I like London a lot more then some places but I think Australia is better ☺☺☺

Dad says:

London is huge. We were staying in Tufnell Park, which is just out of central London. It is in Zone 2, which means with their Oyster travel card we can travel anywhere within zone 1 (central London) & 2 for only 6.5 Pounds per day. This was nice as the kids were someone both free (under 12) and we ended up catching a lot of subways and a few buses with no real hassle. The Oyster card is a top up system (at any subway station) and you can get back any money left on the card at the end.

Our accommodation was really nice and had all the facilities that we needed. Even English speaking TV channels and Netflix - the kids were happy about that. There were many restaurants and convenient stores within a 5 minute walk.

We had the "London Pass" that gave us entry to plenty of places, too much to cover in the 3 days it was valid. The pass was expensive, but we would have easily got our money worth. The best thing about the pass was that we ended up going to a few places we would not have normally gone to (similar to that in Innsbruck and Salzburg). We went to the following places, only some you needed the card:

Day 1 (afternoon only and not using the London Pass yet)

• Harrods  - very expensive, they were selling all designer items, eg 40K watches and for a price comparison their blueberries were 7 Pounds a punnet, yet 1.5 in other fruit shops.
• Trafalgar square - no more pigeons! The second day at this square we saw a procession of police cards blocking the roads and a stream of vehicles all with blacked out windows going through - who know who it was we told Alicia it was royalty.
• Regent Street - Again a lot of big brands here we went to a large toy shop Hamsleis & M&M world.
• Hyde Park - This was huge and since it was a sunny day there were a lot of people around. We saw our first squirrels here.
• Australian war monument - this is on Wellington Square just on the corner of Hyde Park. The New Zealand monument is also here.
• Buckingham Palace - Busy as expected. One thing I was unaware of is that there are three sets of gates around the streets of Buckingham Palace, though due to the traffic only one remains up (The Canadian gates). There was also an African gate and an Australian gate. The kids got a photo with a couple of bobbies and we saw many people leaving the palace from a garden party. Buckingham Palace does not open to the public until July.
• We walked around a bit more, then had takeaway tea from Tufnell Park. Food in London is quite expensive, for instance pizzas are around 9 Pounds, Thai dishes around 8 pounds etc. If you don't think of the conversion rate then it is OK.

Day 2

• The Tower of London - A multi-purpose site with a lot of history and was quite interesting. The kids were surprised that it was not "just a tower" and I think they had Big Ben in mind. Used as a prison, fort, zoo (of sorts) and the keeper of the Crown Jewels. The zoo (it was'nt called a zoo as such) held many exotic animals from  around the world, including bears and tigers. People would come (with their cat/dog) to feed the animals.
• The Tower Bridge - We did'nt get to see it open (it was opening at 10pm), however it does have some glass walk overs and a museum. The kids kept on calling it the London Bridge
• HMS Belfast - A ship used in WW2 D-Day landings to pound the coast. We met a fellow South Australian - he was a Cats supporter and was pretty happy with himself and gave us the bad news.
• London Bridge - Boring bridge next to the Tower bridge. It did have a "dungeon" or "torture" museum, but we gave this a miss.
• Brougham Markets - Great markets near the London bridge. Josh in particular was happy as there were many cheese stalls and each giving samples. He was hunting them out. He really liked the goats cheese and was trying all sorts. Alicia was pretty good to at the samples too.
• Shakeshperes Globe - Unfortunately this was closed as there was a performance on that evening.
• Millenium bridge - Not much, just a walkway - but apparently was in the Harry Potter movies
• Saint Peters Chapel - Another big church
• Double decker bus - Caught our first double decker bus, just because we could and saved a few stops of walking.
• China town - This is where I got my tea from - good value for once.

Day 3

I had to go out earlier than the others as I needed to book the Harry Potter tickets. You need to do this in advance (much more than we left it) and need a printer. Lucky for us we were able to get into a reasonable timeslot, however we had to go on the bus tour. Ideally we would have just bought the tickets to the place itself and got our own transport out there. However this was sold out. The bus trip portion was not cheap either.

• Westminster Cathederal - After going to the bus depot and getting the Harry Potter tickets I was meant to meet up with everyone at Westminster Abbey. I was'nt concentrating and went to Westminster Cathederal. I was wondering why it was'nt that busy. Anyhow having realised my mistake it was only 3 blocks down the road, just past Scottland Yard.
• Westminster Abbey - A big line up for this, most likely as it is one of the first attractions to open (9:30), most others are at 10:00. This was a really interesting and good church to see. You could really spend a lot of time in here, but be earned it would have been very expensive if not on your card. Lots of kings/queens and other influential people are either burried here, or recognised on various places. For instance Florey from Adelaide (Penicillin) has a stone on the floor. One of the most interesting stories was for Oliver Cromwell. He was the leader of the Parliment forces who overthrew the Monarchy in the 17th century. He was buried here for 2 years, before the Monarchs returned to power. After doing so they dug him up, hung and quartered him.
• Big Ben - mainly a photo shoot
• Churchhills bunker - the underground base of parliment during the war years. There was a lot of good information on Churchill himself and how he was a polarizing figure.
• Horse Guards museum - Not that interesting, but did happen to see the changing of the horses
• Kensington Gardens - Very nice place
• Albert Hall - Again this was closed as a performance was on.
• Natural History Museum - Only saw a little bit of this as we were near closing time. It is a very big museum.
• Paddington Station - Yes we had to go and see this and there was a statue to Paddington Bear. The kids loved this.
• We had tea out near Paddington station where I got my first serve of English Fish and Chips (no peas). However I was ripped off. The fish was overcooked and the chips were fries!!

Day 4

Got up early to see Albert hall before the changing of the guards. We did a bit of research into the changing of the guards and so had our spots picked out. It was going to be too hectic (and get there too early) to be at the front in Buckingham Palace so we had alternate spots.

• Albert Hall - Heavily booked out - who would have thought. We dont like this anymore.
• Changing of the Guards - We first went to the place where the old guards walk from St James Place to Buckingham Palace to meet up with the rest of the guards about to be relieved. We saw them being inspected and then the band and the guards walked to Buckingham Palace. We could follow them. After following a little but we headed over to the barracks to see the new guards that are to replace the old ones. Here there were many more, again being inspected and after a while set off to Buckingham Palace. I thought we were lucky to get some very good vantage spots and these were not that busy.
• Royal Mews - The girls went here to see the Royal carriages and horses
• Guards museum - Josh and I went here. I found it more interesting than Josh, just as it described the 5 guard types, their age, the ranking order and why they have feathers (or not) in their caps. Grenadiers are top ranked, then the Coldstream (Used to be first but chose the wrong side in some conflict), Scots (oldest, but not in the united division), Irish and Welsh.
• Science Museum - A lot to see, but we really only saw a IMAX presentation which was just OK.
• Imperial War Mesuem - This was a very good museum as it did not just focus on the two world wars and talked about security in general. It talked about ISIS, IRA, had artefacts from 911 and many other minor conflicts and security related issues.

Day 5

Harry Potter and Universal Studios. This was mainly for the kids and it was very good, enjoyable and relaxing day after our very busy time in London. On the way home Josh and I basically went straight home, whilst the girls did some more shopping.

I really liked London as a tourist, though too big for me to live in. We did do a lot in the time here, but we always knew this was going to be busy and we could relax a bit more in the countryside.

Just one thing with the subways, they were always packed. You had to almost push your way in sometimes. With suitcases etc, allow a bit more time as you may be waiting a few trains before getting on.

Hidden figures (sorry no pictures)

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