Adventures in Europe: London, United Kingdom

On Friday night we flew from Cairo to London, and we were able to enjoy yesterday and this morning touring around. Really this is pretty much a stopover before we head home, but we made the most of it. 

We are staying in Hyde Park at a hotel that is nondescript, in a room that is small and expensive (so, typically London). Still, it manages to look remarkably posh from the outside.

Of course, we have spent time in Hyde Park the actual park, enjoying walks through there a couple of times. 

Something I have done every time I have been in London is climb "Monument." My wife declined to join me, but agreed to wait below while I ascended. 

After climbing many stairs, the view is wonderful, and has changed some since I was last here in 2011.

Your ticket is also a souvenir, but I did not want to carry this around for the rest of the day, so a photo will have to do.

From Monument we had a lovely walk along the Thames . . .

. . . and then up to St. Paul's.

Time for some lunch, and so how about the Olde Cheshire Cheese, which apparently dates from something like 400 years ago!

We ate some lunch and enjoyed a pint by the fire.

We carried on enjoying our walk to Trafalgar Square, where we met a protest in support of the National Health Service. 

We more or less joined in, and down Whitehall past Downing Street (where the protest stopped).

We stopped for photo opportunities at Big Ben . . . 

. . . and Westminster Abbey.

We decided to join the evensong service at 17:00, so walked across the Thames, had a drink and did some more exploring, and then hustled back to join the queue. You cannot take photos inside, but it was a cool experience to join evensong in such an iconic church. We also got to briefly sit in the choir stalls, the most recognizable part of the interior of Westminster Abbey. In just two or three months King Charles' coronation will take place and a lot of people will be watching the procession of people right through the choir stalls where we got to sit.

After the church service it was dark and raining, but that was not any particular issue as our next plans were to see the musical "Wicked" at the Victoria Theatre just a stop on the tube away from Westminster Abbey.

We fly home this afternoon, but had some time to still go for a Hyde Park walk this morning, and keep going on to Buckingham Palace. By the way, this is Diana's first time in London, so the mandatory sites are, pretty much, well, mandatory. 

We actually kept walking on past the palace back to Westminster Abbey, because we wanted to get a souvenir from the gift shop.  So, it ended up being quite the walk, but lovely, and we took the tube back to the hotel before heading off to Heathrow.