We woke up early on Thursday so we could go running in Hyde Park. Trek, Cadence & I had all planned on running, but when we went upstairs in our "hotel" there was nobody working at reception, the floor was covered in glass & the front door was locked once again. There was no way to get back inside unless someone opened it from the inside. So Cadence & Trek ran, & I waited for them to return so I could open the door & let them in.
They ran to Kensington Gardens, the Italian Gardens, along the lake, & back again.
Once they got back, we got the boys up & got everyone ready so we could go explore London more. We found another little bakery & got some scones & waffles for everyone. I was loving the savory scones like cheddar & chive. The sweet things there were just too sweet for my liking which is crazy because I LOVE sweets.
Even Craiger was getting sick of the sugar. He couldn't finish his waffle covered in sugar & M&M's.
For our 3rd day, we decided to tour London by hop on hop off bus. It was an easy way to see everything we wanted to see without having to drive & park in the city on our own. The tour bus was great. They gave you earphones that allowed you to listen to the tour as you passed each London landmark. We loved learning about everything in London. . . it's past, present, & future. It was fascinating.
Parliament & Big Ben were gorgeous. I just love old buildings like these.
Big Ben was my favorite. Even though it was a lot smaller than most people think it is, it's gorgeous. I especially love all the carvings & golden leaf on it's face.
We walked from Big Ben to Westminster Abbey. We wanted to go inside, but they were charging 25 pounds per person to go in. We decided to just enjoy it from the outside on this trip. It, too, was beautiful.
We walked from Westminster to Buckingham Palace & found the cutest little cottage in a park. We had to take a few pictures. ADORABLE.
Finally, after 2 miles of walking, we found Buckingham Palace. The home of the Queen of England. It was very exciting.
The kids really enjoyed watching the guards with the tall black hats marching back & forth guarding the palace.
After exploring the palace, we walked 2 miles back to where the hop on hop off bus would pick us up again. We had to take some pictures of the London Eye while we were there.
Then we continued our tour of London. There were SO many beautiful buildings to see.
Our next stop would be the Tower Bridge & the Tower of London. We loved driving through the big city of London (all the tall buildings), but again we got caught in traffic & it wound up taking us 1 1/2 hours to get to the tower bridge.
We FINALLY arrived at the tower bridge . . . & it was BEAUTIFUL.
The kids were excited as we crossed the bridge.
We got off the bus & took pictures with the bridge & walked over to the Tower of London where the crown jewels were kept.
The tower of London is a fortress that has been there for hundreds of years. We didn't go inside (we've done that on a previous trip to London), but I highly recommend it. The tour here is amazing.
At this point we all had to go to the bathroom. Bathrooms are always hard to find in Europe. There was a bathroom at the Tower of London so we ran to it. Of course, we had to pay to use it. . . 50 pence. We had American dollars, we had TONS of Euro, we even had pounds in bill form, but we had ZERO COINS. We seriously were going to pee our pants if we didn't use the bathroom quickly. There was a change machine next to the bathrooms so we put our 20 pound bill inside only to get an error message saying that it only took 5 or 10 pound bills. We wound up running to the nearest souvenir stand to buy a 1 pound magnet so that we could get actual change to use the bathroom. We had a 1 pound coin, but the bathroom wouldn't take that either. . . they literally wanted 50 pence. My boys' faces were straining & could see tears forming. I threw that one pound coin into the change machine & FINALLY it spit out 2 50 pence pieces. Hallelujah! We FINALLY got to use the bathroom, much to our body's relief.
It took us about 2.5 hours to get from our original area to the tower of London, so we knew we had better hop on & get back so that we could grab some quick dinner & make it back to the Apollo Victoria Theater on time to see Wicked. It was nearing 3:00 & we needed to be at the theater by 6:30.
Well, going back took a grand total of 15 minutes. 2.5 hours to get to the tower of London & 15 minutes to get back. That was a surprise for sure.
SO, we had PLENTY of time to catch dinner & hang out before going to the theater. We ate dinner at a Shake Shack (burgers, hot dogs, & yummy lemonade), & then we found a really fun park near Buckingham Palace. We let the kids play at the playground for nearly 2 hours. They had a blast. Cadence, Trek, & I literally took turns catching a nap on a bench while the kids played.
We left the playground at around 6:00 & walked to the Apollo Victoria Theater. We were SO excited to see Wicked. This was the boys' first time seeing it. It's one of my very favorite plays.
And as always, Broadway musicals are amazing. The sets, the costumes, the music. . . all of it was absolutely amazing. Everybody loved it.
The play got out around 10:30, so we hopped into our van (the theater was right by the parking garage we were parked next to). We parked in front of our hotel for the night. It was an incredible day. I love London.
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