Vacation in the city of the Olympics - London

Now with the Olympics in full swing, all eyes are focused on London. I have to admit, I haven't followed them closely, I am not too crazy about sports, but I did see the gymnastics team win the gold medal yesterday and that reminded me to tell you about our recent trip to London. Recent as in four weeks before the Olympics and with three of our friends from Florida.

It wasn't just London, we (meaning all of us) had planned a trip to Scotland too, but that is something for later.

The flight was pretty much forward: Brownsville, Houston, London Heathrow. I had heard terrible things about this airport, how chaotic it were and everything would take hours, but honestly, it wasn't that bad!

After claiming our luggage, we looked for the tube station. We knew already that the Oystercard would be the way to go around London and again, it was quick and painless to obtain it. The advantage is, you have a prepaid ticket, you can go anywhere you want and if you run out of money, you just top it off. Also, if you don't use it up, you hand it to the person at the ticket counter and get your money back. Nice. Next you look at the map, hop on the tube and off you go. I love public transportation! A good working system makes going from A to B so much more relaxing.

Because our friends would fly in from Florida and arrive a few hours later, we decided to have some coffee. Our hotel was near Hammersmith Station and we discovered this nice pub on the way. Oh, I should mention that we met with Chuck at the airport (also a friend of ours, who happened to spend a couple of days in London at the same time).

Afterwards we took a nice stroll along the river Thames. The weather was quite nice for London, cloudy but not rainy.

  seeing the boats I was reminded of Amsterdam

I liked this bridge

the Harrold's depository

Joe, Ana and Bob arrived in the afternoon and so we checked in into the Golden Strand Hotel. We shared a room with Joe and Ana, Bob had his own - it wouldn't have fit anyway, there was barely room to move for the four of us :D Anyway, the hotel is basic, clean and not too shabby for the budget friendly traveler. The location is close to the tube, some restaurants and shops and therefore not bad at all.

Getting ready to explore the city.

For the afternoon the six ... seven ... of us had planned to do some sightseeing. Six because Chuck would join us again and seven because we had asked Frank to meet us. He is a long time friend from Germany, living in Porthmouth and we hadn't seen each other for a long time. Speaking of opportunities :) He had to come with us.

The first thing he showed us was Buckingham Palace. Even more exciting: it was sunny!!!!

Next stop Big Ben and the House of Parliament. As you can see the weather can change quickly.

  a view of London Eye

we walked and walked and ran into .... Sherlock Holmes! Well, into a pub named after the famous person, but with a nice museum upstairs full of memorabilia. 

The replica of the room where the thinker solved a lot of puzzles

After a refreshing beer or a cider, we walked a few more streets before entering Chinatown.

 

 ... and because walking makes you hungry, we picked a place to have dinner.

Picture time while waiting for our orders: Ana, Joe, Frank, Volker, Bob, myself and Chuck

The first day of London was fun, stay tuned for day 2 and 3

to be continued ...