This site, on south bank of Thames river, has been the site of a pub for more than 400 years!
We had spent some time looking over the brochures about what we wanted to see on our last day in London and decided to buy a one-day London Pass. The pass has free admission to a lot of different places along with discounts on transport and dining. It seemed to be a good bargain if you are going to hit up several attractions in a short period of time.
Before I get to what we did on our "one day tourist blitz" of London, let me tell you about the Oyster Card. This is a card used on the London Underground. The card itself costs 3 GBP, but then you "top off" with money at any ticket machine in an Underground station. The beauty of the card is that you will never pay more for a day's worth of travel than the "one day, unlimited travel" pass. So you don't have to worry about trying to work out travel logistics for saving money! Also, the fares for single trips are discounted if you use your card! Another highly recommended item if spending anytime in London.
We made our way to the British Tourism office to purchase our London Passes. After getting the passes, Chelsea wanted to go tour the Tower of London (a free option with the pass) so we made our way to Tower Hill. Even though I had been to the tower on numerous occassions since 1973, I learned (or re-learned) many historical facts surrounding the Tower. One of which was the fact that Sir Walter Raliegh had been imprisoned at the tower on numerous occassions including a 10 year stretch during which his son was born at the Tower. I was also impressed with some of the grafitti carving in the "prison" tower that was done by prisoners.
After the Tower, we got on board one of the City Cruise boats that travels along the Thames (a hop-on hop-off ticket is free with the pass) and rode down to the Westminister area. The boat hand that gave an impromptou tour narrative during the trip was very entertaining and I enjoyed seeing someone that really enjoyed their job.
We toured the Churchill Museum and War Cabinet Rooms near the Houses of Parliment. This was another "freebie" with the London Pass and was very intruiging to see the actual rooms and furnishings that Churchill and his staff used during the Battle of Britian and other strategic times during World War II.
After the War Rooms we walked along the edge of King James' Park and headed to Trafalger Square to grab a quick snack - a sandwich from Pret A Manger. It's nice to see "fast food" chains that produce healthy and environmentally conscious food. Too bad the American fast food chains couldn't take the hint! We ate our food sitting at the base of Nelson's monument in Trafalger Square and commented on the high number of foreign tourists are in London. It was fun to watch all the kids try to climb onto the lions that guard Nelson's monument.
Also, on the London Pass was admission to any special exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery. While the National Portrait Gallery has free admission, they had a special exhibit of Annie Leibowitz work from her new book. We decided to take a quick turn through the exihibit, while we were in the neighborhood!
We had a bit more souvenier shopping to take care of so we headed towards Harrods Department store. To say the store was "crazy" with holiday shoppers would be an understatment, but we hung in there. Chelsea is no longer the timid, hang back person in crowds! Some cheaper momentos were also in order so we took the Tube to Picadilly Circus looking for the tourist souvenier stores. Picadilly was also a swarm of shoppers and tourists and there was another Christmas Fayre (amusement rides) taking place in Picadilly. We also lucked into finding a luggage store that was going out of business and I bought a cheap duffle bag to "offload" some of Chelsea's luggage so we hopefully wouldn't be hit with excess bag fees when we check into our flights tomorrow.
With our shopping goals accomplished we decided to take advantage of the Wagamama 2-for-1 deal with the London Pass. There was a Wagamama that honored the discount back near the Tower of London so we took the Tube and walked a few blocks looking for the restaurant. By this time (7:00p) the area was void of tourists and we thought what good luck... we're in for a quick meal. Unfortunately the restaurant was severely under staffed and we ended up waiting longer for our food here than at any other time during the trip. However, we did indeed get the 2-for-1 deal so it kind of made up for the poor service.
By this time it was 8:30p and we had been on the go nearly 12 hours - and since it gets dark so early, 8:30p feels well past midnight! We had planned to see a film at Chelsea Cinemas (another free feature of London Pass), but we were both pretty tired and decided to head back to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, we re-packed and caught up on email. Tomorrow is an early morning as we will catch the Tube for Heathrow around 8:00a and hope that the business rush hour is a bit less since it is only 2 days 'til Christmas!
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