Friday 20 February 2009

Good morning! Here we are back home again from our short trip to the Capital. We took the train down on Tuesday morning, a really good service, the Wrexham and Shropshire. Bit of confusion over the seating, we had reserved seats that were all over the place, however, the train manager sorted things out and we arrived safely in about three and three quarter hours.

Hoisting our backpacks, we set off from London Marylebone towards our pad for the next few days, the YHA Central London. Just how central it is can best be judged by how long it takes to walk to Oxford Street - about 5 minutes tops!

The best way to see the city is to take one of the bus tours. We used the Original Tour Company - and for £68 we had two days use, two adults, two children and a '5' year old (special winter offer, buy one day get another free - ends 28 Feb). You can get off and on at loads of place along the route(s), but on the first afternoon, we took the red tour all round the main sites, Horse Guards, 'Big Ben', The Houses of Parliament, The London Eye, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, the back of Buckingham Palace, Lambeth Palace etc etc ETC...

The following day we took the bus for s short hop down to Westminster Pier (in the shadow of 'Big Ben' and Parliament) for our complimentary boat trip (included in the bus ticket!) up to the Tower. We hopped off here to take a look inside the Tower of London. First though, lunch was eaten - outside from one of the kiosks - around £20 for the five of us, not bad I guess. Then in to the Tower itself, £46 for a family of 5 - again not that bad, one supposes (we're just spoiled having National Trust and English Heritage memberships - pay once for the year, get in everywhere for free - some of these would probably run to around £50 for the five of us).

After the Tower a short hop on the bus back down to Westminster for a trip on The Eye. Now, as a confirmed Acrophobic I was a little trepidatious. However, THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR. It was by any stretch a fantastic experience. The thing is so stable, you get no sense of rocking, just a smooth ride round the outside of a gigantic Ferris wheel and you can see for miles. It really is brilliant. It can't cure acrophobia, but it's not designed to.

And then, back on the bus for a ride back to base. Just a quick note on the Hostel. This was state of the art. Clean, bright, minimal, not too noisy - brilliant. We shared a six berth room, with three bunks. The boys had the tops and we slept on the bottom. Personally, I had two really good nights of sleep, so I have no complaints.

So to Thursday. Booked for the 4.33 train home, we had a few hours to spare. This time we took the blue route on the tour, should have stopped at the corner of Piccadilly and Regent Street but it didn't. We eventually found out that the stop was on a side street just off Piccadilly Circus. This tour took us into Theatre land and then back out towards the Museums, the Science, National History and V&A.

Not keen on the big queues for the Nat Hist (Darwin's 200 birthday) or the Sci, we trundled into the V&A. A calming few hours spent looking at various antiquities we set off for the train at twenty to four, having bought tea on the way...