Talk about Londontown!

I suppose it's about time I shared some pictures about our recent trip to London.
My husband and I went the third week of May for 6 fun-filled days for our first trip to London.  This was my first time in the UK altogether, but C has been to Leamington Spa for work.

We stayed at the very centrally located Charing Cross Hotel.  It was important to us to be close to touristy stuff and public transportation, so this was really the best choice.

As you can see, the hotel is just about as close to an Underground station as one could get, although we chose to use the Embankment station just down the road as that one had access to more lines than the Charing Cross Station.

We did a TON of walking.  The first three days we were there, we only walked, no other mode of transportation.  We walked up the Thames and explored Temple Church and the beautiful walkways along the river.

We walked miles and miles the second day, along the south side of the Thames.  We saw many people out enjoying the unusually warm weather.  We toured the Clink Prison Museum, the HMS Belfast, Vinopolis and saw the Tower Bridge (the visit to the Tower of London was planned for a future day).

On Sunday, our third day, we went to Harrod's Department Store.  Talk about LUXURY!  It was quite a sight to see and really put our US department stores to shame.  Most amazing, just like everyone says, are the Food Halls.  I can't believe how many options there were!

We also went shopping along Oxford Street (Chicagoans, think Michigan Avenue, but better!) and had a fantastic time just window shopping.  We went to John Lewis so I could buy yarn...I wish Macy's would carry yarn!  We ate at a great pub and took pictures of the Elephant Parade.

Sunday night we met up with one of C's coworkers who was also in town for work and we found a sports bar that was actually showing the Blackhawks playoff game!  We were 4000 miles away from Chicago and were still able to watch them win to get to the Stanley Cup!  :)

Monday we went to the Tower of London in the morning, walked around Parliament and toured Westminster Abbey, and in the evening had a fantastic dinner at Gaucho and then saw the amazing Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theater.

We could not, however, see the Crown Jewels or tour Parliament because the Queen herself was in town!  So Parliament was only enjoyed from afar, but we were able to get into the amazingly beautiful Westminster Abbey in the afternoon with just enough time to get back to the hotel (and change rooms because the AC broke in our room) get cleaned up and get to dinner before Phantom.

Some of the other fun things that we did while there included visiting the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms (C loved this!), walking around trying to find as many Elephants on the map as possible, eating at as many pubs and getting fish & chips and cider (for me) or an ale (for C), getting wine at Gordon's Wine Bar down the street from our hotel, and many other fun things.  It's sad, because I really can't remember what we did each day, though I did try to write as much as I could down and save pamphlets and receipts to look back on later.

Well if you've made it through this entire post, I applaud you.  I leave you now with just a few more snapshots from London:

Cheers!  Kelly