London with Kelly

Kelly and I met in London this past week.  We had a great time.  Lots of sunshine and lots of walking.  Here are a few photos of the things that we did and saw.  The place that we stayed was very close to the "tube" so we learned the underground system pretty well.

The London marathon was on Sunday so the city was very crowded.  We did get up on one of the bridges to take this picture.  That is Big Ben in the background with the Thames river.

This is an alley that leads down to St. Paul's Cathedral, what a beautiful building.  As we wondered around inside I wondered if I should suggest to the "Brethren" in Salt Lake if we could build a few chapels like it.  With all of the paintings and such it would give the children something to look at when they are bored with the speakers.  We didn't take pictures inside but take my word for it that it really was beautiful.

Hyde park, the perfect place for a morning stroll.  We had a wonderful walk through the park one morning.  It was mostly done by mistake, we took the wrong bus, but it turned out to be a wonderful morning in the park.

The queen was to busy to see us but we did get this picture of Buckingham palace, us and about 5,000 other people.  There is a lot going on around the palace due to a small wedding that will be happening next week.  There are a lot of clean up work going on around the grounds and the surrounding area.

After Buckingham palace we headed for Westminster Abbey.  This picture was taken just down the block.  Big Ben seems to be in a lot of the pictures. With so many people in town there was always a really long line to get into the Abbey.  Not being someone who likes to stand in line and since Kelly has already been inside, I decided that I did not really need to see the inside.  We went back twice to try to get in but both times there was at least a 2 hour wait.  So we moved on.

This is Hampton Court.  King Henry VIII and the royal court played here.  We took a boat down the Thames to Hampton Court.  Kelly and I read a book about the history London before we met there.  As we road the boat down the river we talked about how the royal court used to get there.  They had rather large "barges" or row boats that they would load everyone on.  The men who rowed the boats must have been very strong because it took us an hour to get to Hampton and this boat had a motor.

The entrance to Hampton Court.  Can you see the carriages going up through the portico?  The inside courtyard is where the servants would meet the guests and escort them to their rooms that were located around the courtyard.

I think I was born to be a royal and something went wrong.  I don't know how or when,  but I should have been in charge!

 Some very beautiful tulips that are on the grounds.  The gardens are in full bloom and are really quite lovely!

The tower of London is just off of the Tower bridge.  The Tower of London is where the crown jewels are kept and where prisoners were kept.  Some of the more famous prisoners were Anne Bolin,  Sir Thomas Moore and many others.

While at the tower we had a celebrity sighting.  You may know this one.  Her name is Jane Seymour.  She was there doing bits for Entertainment Tonight.  Here she is talking about the Beefeater's at the Tower of London.  Beefeater's are the Kings food tasters.




Besides doing a lot of sight seeing we went to see 2 plays.  The Lion King and Mousetrap.  The Lion King was fabulous.  Mousetrap is one of the longest running, if not the longest running play in London.  It has been running for 45 years at the same theater.  A mystery and a musical, what more could you want?  I had a wonderful time, I think though that the next time we should meet someplace that is warm and has a pool.