European Vacation: Friday August 2 London, England

Off to London today,

Leaving our Paris Apartment.

Subway, we're getting lots of experience riding subways.

It amazes me how many people travel to and fro by subway. It's quite the process: up and down stairs, escalators, hallways like huge tunnels, put ticket in - take ticket out at turn styles, criss-crossing through all the people as they rush to their destination, and constantly being aware of your personal belongings, then looking for the right track, checking out the stops to see where to disembark. Wait on the platform until the subway car rolls in, look to see which car has room and quickly head for it. Car stops completely, doors slide open, people get off, we get on and find a seat {if lucky} A warning buzzer sounds, doors close and we're off! Whew! All this activity underground! And to think some people travel the subway everyday. But it is a great way of transporting many people at one time. Londoners refer to the subway as the "tube".

We are on our way to the train station to travel to London, England. Good thing we have good tour guides, Michael & Sandy, to figure everything out for us.

Tom on the train to London, reading a book.

Arriving at London Station. So very big.

Our room at the Parkwood Hotel, near Marble Arch area. Notice how tall the windows are. The ceilings are about 15 feet high. Neat! After getting settled, we went on a city bus tour. Like Paris, London is an extremely busy city. To put it in perspective, Paris has a population of over 2,000,000 people, Greater Toronto Area over 7,000.000 and London England almost 9,000,000. It's BIG!

I was intrigued by taxis, the red double decker city buses, and the zillion tour buses and I can't forget to mention the red telephone booths. So quaint.

I liked the shiny black taxis the best but there were many different colour paint jobs - some for advertising purposes.

These are the red double decker city buses. There were so many, one would be following the other. I thought they were quite unique.

Aren't these phone booths something? We saw quite a few of these.

While on the tour bus we drove by these 2 theatres ---- The Lyric, advertising the show "Thriller" and next to it The Apollo.

Here is one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square is a very popular tourist attraction. It commemorates the battle of Trafalgar with a British naval victory over France. Many events take place in this large square as well as demonstrations/protests. Thousands gathered here to watch the wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton on a big screen April 29, 2011.

Here in the background you can see the Nelson Column (170 ft. tall) with the figure of Horatio Nelson on top, commander of the British Fleet. There are 4 large lion statues at the base which people were climbing/sitting on. There are 4 columns --- plinths --- on which there are statues, but one of the plinths does not a permanent statue and different art pieces are displayed periodically. This huge very blue rooster in the foreground has a story I'm sure.

To the right of this picture is one of the huge lion statues. Compare his size to the people around. In the background there is a sailboat..... a "Clipper" which will be manned by an English team and will do a "Clipper Round the World Yacht Race" beginning Sept 1,2013 ---- 40,000 miles in 11 months.

Near Trafalgar Square is the Canada House. I loved seeing our Canadian flag.

This is St Paul's Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of London and is the highest point in the City of London.

A very interesting building called the Shard of Glass which is 87 stories high (over 1,000 ft.high) and has office space, a 5 star resort and exclusive residences. Our tour guide said one apartment sold for 45,000,000 pounds. I don't know if he was pulling our leg or not but that's a lot of "moulah". It's a skyscraper that really stands out with it's very shiny glass structure.

Tower Bridge --- suspension bridge that crosses the Thames River. It got it's name because it is close to the Tower of London.

Going over the Tower Bridge with our bus. It's very picturesque with it's blue paint. As you can see people can also walk across the bridge.

Clock Tower is now called Elizabeth Tower in honour of Queen Elizabeth's 60 Anniversary. Big Ben is the name of the bell inside that rings once on the hour. This 4 sided clock is so impressive to see as it reaches for the sky.

Palace of Westminster (British Houses of parliament) on the banks of the Thames River.

After our bus tour we made our way to see Buckingham Palace. It is very large but I guess I was expecting it to look like a castle. See the soldiers on either side, this helps to visualize the size.

One of the soldiers up close, taken through the fence and using the zoom on the camera. There is a high metal fence enclosing the Palace.

Tom & I in front of Buckingham Palace. See the high fence and the entrance gates to the Palace.

Victoria Memorial, in front of Buckingham Palace, made of white marble, was built in honour of Queen Victoria who reigned for over 60 years.

We had a picnic-like dinner near the London Eye, our next destination.

This the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel, with 32 capsules that hold up to 25 people ( a total of 800 people). It is situated on the Thames River and is one of London's most popular tourist attractions.