We are about to disembark from the Viking Hlin as we say goodbye to the many new travel friends we met along this Viking River Cruise. We had a lot of fun and saw some amazing cities. I can’t wait to fill you in on it all.
But, for now, I’ll back up to the start of our journey.
Our days London were jammed packed and enjoyable.
We really liked British Airways and the upgrade to premium economy was totally worth it. Regardless, it is hard to sleep on a plane. We wished we could have upgraded to business class, although I’m not sure that would have been that much easier to sleep. This is the biggest plane I’ve been on and it really looks big when it is along side a Southwest plane.
Once we landed and make our way to the Mercure Bloomsbury Hotel, we freshened up as best we could and went in search of food in hopes of keeping us awake just a bit longer. I clean up pretty nicely for only sleeping 3 hours of the last 27 hours.
Our first full day in London was the Hop On/Off bus. I am really glad we planned this because we were tired and we are still dealing with that tired jet-lag feeling. We rode all four bus lines and at one point we got off the bus a few times to take photos up close (you can’t see Buckingham Palace from the bus). Sadly, the Queen was out of town. We also saw Westminster Abby and found out that the iconic Big Ben was actually under construction. Not cool!
You can see the London Eye from many places and while I had hoped to ride it, there just wasn’t enough time for everything.
Our bus pass included a water cruise portion, which made getting photos easier. London is such an off mix of old and new architecture.
We had some good meals in London including traditional fish & chips, poached egg on toast, and porridge. We also stopped into this pub I’d been seeing all over town called Green King, one of which was outside The British Museum. You always knew one was close when I saw the hanging flower pots.
The service industry is another story. I don’t know if it is just London specific but food/drink service was terrible. I had heard they don’t expect tips and maybe that is the difference. Also, despite speaking “English” boy did I have trouble communicating with the British. Apparently my meaning of things isn’t the same. I keep reminding myself that the language barrier is only going to get worse as we continue towards Germany. Wish me luck!
Day Two was spent at Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio. I’ll check back with that recap soon.
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