Our Trip to London – Day Two
We woke up on day two in London ready to explore! Our friend, Josh, led the way and was an amazing tour guide and made our sight-seeing day effortless!
We grabbed our Oyster cards and hopped on the Tube and headed to Buckingham Palace. The Changing of the Guards was about to happen, so there were A LOT of people. We didn’t stay to watch because we had different plans during that time. We truly tried to utilize every bit of time we could while in London for 48 hours.
It was so cool to see these gates!
I love this picture of us because it was just like, hey…there’s the palace behind us…let’s say, “cheese!” LOL! We seriously just walked through all the people, across the front gates, smiled for the camera and then kept moving. Quickest sight-seeing spot ever, but it was necessary to get to our next location!
We took a lovely walk from the palace to head to Westminster Abbey. It was so pretty!
Josh took us to this location to get a picture with a telephone booth AND Big Ben! So fun!
Then we headed over to check out The London Eye over on the Thames River.
Taking it in…
Next, we headed to Westminster Abbey and said, “Hi,” to Winston Churchill on the way…
Josh snapped this photo of us and then headed off. We were alone to navigate for ourselves, but he helped prep us and the day went smoothly. Huge thanks again to him!
Westminster was just as beautiful as I had imagined…
We kind of knew what to expect while visiting, but also had no idea what we were doing. We did a self audio guide and it was totally worth it. Did you know that Westminster Abbey is home to over 3,000 graves inside Westminster Abbey.
This is also where Kate Middleton and Prince William were married. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip were also married here.
A member of the clergy (a priest, perhaps) walked us to Scientists’ Corner. Newton, Darwin, Hawking, Faraday (amongst many others) are buried under the markers. Definitely surreal.
I snapped a photo of the gentleman who had sent us over. He was a cool guy!
Then we headed over to Lady Chapel inside the Abbey. It was full of late medieval architecture and is the burial place of fifteen kings and queens, which include Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, George II, Charles II, William III, Mary II and Queen Anne. It also includes the first Tudor king, Henry VII.
We continued our visit and headed to Poets’ Corner. We never did see Shakespeare’s spot, which was a bummer, but for all that we saw, we weren’t complaining.
Jane wanted a quick photo before leaving Westminster.
We happened upon this old door and checked out the oldest surviving room in Westminster – The Pyx Chamber. It was built around 1070. The door itself was made around 1032 and 1064.
On the way out, I wrote down a prayer for my Dad and lit a candle.
As we headed out of the Abbey, we were able to see the Coronation Chair – also known as St. Edward’s Chair or King Edward’s Chair. It’s been used in every coronation since 1308.
We headed out of Westminster and decided we needed a quick bite to eat, but we didn’t want to sit for long since we still had a lot we wanted to see, so we grabbed food from a street vendor and it was really good!
Jon and I grabbed coffees, too! We were having so much fun!
We grabbed another picture of us in in front of Big Ben and walked to our next destination…
Eliza spotted a place for Boba while on our walk through Waterloo, so we stopped for a minute and treated her to a drink.
Also, we kept an AirTag on Jane the ENTIRE trip…
Our walk was so pretty…
This bookstore housed books dedicated only to theatre! How unique is that?!
Just before heading into Borough Market, we walked this amazing cheese store. There was more cheese than I’ve seen anywhere in my life!
Borough Market!
So much food and lots of treats inside!
The line for chocolate strawberries was long and everyone was eating them, but it moved quickly.
Henry kept smiling goofy all day and it took me until later in the day to catch on. Oh, teens. LOL!
Then we headed off to our next stop – the London Bridge…but we went to the wrong one… thinking we were going to to Tower Bridge, but we were able to walk on London Bridge to see Tower Bridge in the distance. Also, we were able to get some souvenirs, lattes and visit another cool spot…
These kids make everything fun! We just adore them!
We happened upon – Shakespeare’s Globe area. Since we didn’t get to see his burial place at Westminster, this kind of worked out – the area of the original globe playhouse of William Shakespeare!
Where it once stood – soooooo cool!
Then we were able to visit the reconstructed Globe that was built in 1599!
It had been an eventful day and it was time to meet up with our friends for dinner, plus, we were excited to see our friend, Christina, who had been traveling for work. Oh and during this day and a half, the Heathrow Airport was shut down due to a fire, so people coming into London were redirected elsewhere and Christina had to hop on a train and made it a point to get back to London as soon as possible. What a crazy time!
We hopped into a coffee shop for our 4th or 5th coffees of the day. Hahaha. This latte was excellent!
10/10 and five stars!
Souvenirs…
We made it back to our friends’ house and then headed out to dinner!
Friends since Kindergarten.
Josh and Christina took us to Abbey Road to get a picture in the exact spot as The Beatles’ album cover. Paul McCartney lives a couple of blocks away from this location in St. John’s Wood.
This is where The Beatles did most of the their recording!
Once back to the house, we settled in and relaxed. The kids played and we caught up with Josh and Christina. It was incredibly nice to just sit and hang out.
…and that concludes our trip to London! The next morning we were off to Scotland! Blog posts coming soon!!!
Thanks for scrolling through and Happy Travels!
Marie 🙂
