Album: London

2003.05.02 16:35
Our two-week trip to England and Scotland started on May 2, 2003. Here's Nancy on the train to Newark airport.

2003.05.03 03:44
We arrived in London at about 6 a.m. local time after an all-night flight of about 8 hours. We were bleary-eyed and jet-lagged but decided to stay up the whole day.

2003.05.03 03:48
The weather was nice so we decided to walk to Buckingham palace. Here's Nancy on the way.

2003.05.03 03:48
The obligatory double decker bus photo.

2003.05.03 04:00
Classic London architecture.

2003.05.03 04:00
More architecture.

2003.05.03 04:13
There were happy ducks on the approach to Buckingham palace.

2003.05.03 04:18
The park next to Buckingham palace was really hopping with tourists. We thought these two tourists looked like an especially happy couple.

2003.08.23 16:30
Hey - it's Buckingham palace! But wait, the Queen isn't there - she's only there half of the year, and this wasn't the right half. But still they wouldn't let us come any closer to the actual palace than this.

2003.05.03 05:43
There was a church nearby where for 50p we took an elevator to the top. The views helped us get our bearings in this great big city.

2003.05.03 05:47
London has a mix of old and new architecture. We wouldn't call it a beautiful city to look at, but it's not bad either.

2003.05.03 05:47
These apartments (er, flats) did look quite nice though.

2003.05.03 06:14
This is the parliament building, which we didn't have time to visit until our return to London some days later.

2003.05.03 10:03
But of course there is always time for a snack! We found this place while riding a bus around London. The double decker busses are very convenient, but a bit hard to get on and off. Nancy smashed her shin up getting on one and now has a permanent scar! Ouch! update 2005: scar's still there.

But of course there is always time for a snack! We found this place while riding a bus around London. The double decker busses are very convenient, but a bit hard to get on and off. Nancy smashed her shin up getting on one and now has a permanent scar!

2003.05.03 10:44
We walked in a very nice park for a while, to keep ourselves awake.

2008.01.10 01:36
There were lots of pretty flower gardens, here's one of them. May is a pretty good time to go to England if you like flowers!

2003.05.04 03:04
It's the next day already! Train stations in England are nice. This one took us out to a very different part of London, to find the morning market.

2003.05.04 03:31
In the market. Some produce available in green markets is grown in England, some is imported, mostly from European countries and Israel. It's interestingly different from the USA where most of our imports come from South America.

2003.05.04 04:55
The weather on our second day in London was GORGEOUS! Who said English weather is bad?

2003.05.04 04:57
We passed by a cute little park with a lawn bowling green in the center. It must have been an affluent area because it was surrounded by truly fantastic - and expensive-looking - apartments.

2003.05.04 05:10
We were on our way to the British Museum (???). Just outside are some ruins left around from when the Romans occupied London over 1,000 years ago.

2003.05.04 05:10
The ruins sat right outside the museum - the wall next to them is one of the exterior walls of the museum. The museum itself had quite a bit of information about London at the time of Roman rule.

2008.01.10 01:36
This is that famous place (???) where people can stand on soapboxes and give speeches on whatever topic they like. We heard that it is usually quite colorful, unfortunately when we were there it was just one very big stage with some kind of religious organization giving boring speeches. The art museum was quite nice though and we saw a famous American movie star walking from room to room with a personal tour guide barely able to keep up with him.

This is that famous place (???) where people can stand on soapboxes and give speeches on whatever topic they like. We heard that it is usually quite colorful, unfortunately when we were there it was just one very big stage with some kind of religious org

2003.05.04 08:26
This is the famous Tower of London. It was closing when we got there and we couldn't go in. Oh well.

2003.05.04 08:28
It wasn't as much of a tower was we expected anyway.

2003.05.04 08:31
A very nice European tourist volunteered to take our photo with London Bridge in the background.

2003.05.04 08:32
We walked along the river on the way to the Bridge.

2008.01.10 01:35
Eventually we made it to the bridge and walked across. It's not a very big bridge by modern standards but it is very gothic-looking and from the bridge itself you can see some pretty nice views of the London skyline.

2003.05.04 08:55
Nancy loves classic Minis!

2003.05.04 23:54
This is our hotel room in Picadilly Circus right before we checked out. We stayed there for two nights. It was not particularly nice but not particulary expensive either. Picadilly Circus is pretty convenient to the rest of the city, but isn't as exciting itself as we had expected it to be.

This is our hotel room in Picadilly Circus right before we checked out. We stayed there for two nights. It was not particularly nice but not particulary expensive either. Picadilly Circus is pretty convenient to the rest of the city, but isn't as excit