A Walking Tour of London

I've just come back from a three day break to London with Andy. By complete coincidence we both had the same week off work so decided to take a little trip and do some sightseeing. There were so many things that could have potentially have gone wrong with this trip- mostly involving the weather, potentially having to carry our luggage around all day with us after we checked out of the hotel, and/ or us spending too much time together too early on and getting sick of each other. Luckily none of these things happened :) 

Our hotel was in Covent Garden, so we spent the first afternoon doing some sightseeing in the area. This turned out to be an amazing location- we were so close to Soho and Chinatown, as well as all the major attractions.  In only a couple of hours we had seen Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Downing Street. We even saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Everything was so close, and the maps only seemed to be deceiving- what looked like an impossible walk turned out to be only a half an hour stroll. 

This is the 'art' on display at Trafalgar Square- I hoped there would be an interesting concept behind it but no, it is just a big blue cock.  

As you can tell from the photos, the sky was so grey we thought there would be a torrential downpour at any moment but we were so lucky. However every so often there was beautiful blue skies... This was just as well considering we walked pretty much everywhere. It was only on the last day we got the underground and even then it was easier to walk to many of the places. But we were both absolutely shattered. 

The next day we did the Tower of London, and saw the Crown Jewels, walked along Tower Bridge, popped into the Tate Modern and ended up at St Paul's, which is where my camera batteries died. As it was Ash Wednesday there was no sightseeing at St Paul's, only services, but the very nice man let us have a quick look around. Neither of us had been in before and it was stunning. Next time I would definitely like to have a proper look round because I had no idea how beautiful it was. 

We also went on the London Eye. For weeks, there had been a lot of 'will we, wont we', as Andy is not good with heights.  After queuing for over half an hour for tickets we were committed, but I soon realised he was not exaggerating. He spent the majority of the ride sat down staring at his feet and panicking every time we stopped. I was of no help, holding his hand for approximately five minutes before jumping up to take photos. 

Although there are no photos, we also went to see the Lion King which was incredible. Considering we went on a Tuesday evening, and it has been running since 1999, the theatre was packed. We managed to get ticket for £40 from a box office in Leicester Square the morning before, which is well worth doing, but try a few different ones- the first offer was £65 so we asked at another one. We were sat at the back but it really didn't make much difference, we could still see everything. Another tip is if you have a return ticket to any London train station, you can get 2 for 1 vouchers online for all the major attractions- we saved money at the Tower, the Eye and also Madame Tussaud's.