After a 7 1/2 hour flight, we arrived in London at 6:30 a.m. We each only slept an hour or two on the plane even though our seats had extra leg room. Took a hired car from Heathrow to our hotel near Covent Garden in London. Since it was too early to check into our room, we left our luggage there and went to get some much needed coffee.
We walked to the London Eye, got a fast track ticket and boarded quickly. We were a little worried we would fall asleep standing in the sun in a long line. The views were great but we were about the only ones in our pod admiring them. Everyone else seemed to just want to take selfies (yes, saying that ages us!).
We walked around and found Whitehall Gardens by the Thames, where lots of tulips were blooming. After Jack took beautiful photos of the tulips, we caught a taxi to the Victoria & Albert Museum, ate a bite in the their outdoor cafe and explored the museum.
We were on our way to Harrod’s department store but on the way found the Oratory of St. Philip Neri Catholic Church which was beautiful inside and much bigger than it looked from the street. We don’t know who St. Phillip Neri is — Kathy started to look it up, but the article was too long. A visit to Harrod’s followed. Took the tube from there to near our hotel and ate dinner at an All Bar One.
Returned to the hotel to check in and get our luggage into the room. Then we raced to St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Evensong (mostly sung) service. The service was a little longer than we expected with a lengthy sermon so we tried not to fall asleep!
Tried to go into two different pubs afterwards but even on a Tuesday night London’s pubs are very crowded! We didn’t realize that dinner in pubs is typically served on a different level and sometimes through a different door (but more about that tomorrow). With no places to sit and tired feet, we went back to the hotel and were able to go into the lounge (because of Jack’s Hilton points status) where we got free wine and snacks!
After being up for almost 33 hours, the day was done.
By going to the menu at the top of this page and into the galleries, you’ll find more photos at the England/Ireland page, including the beautiful tulips.