London - Ancient, Where East Meets West and Time Begins, and an Inspiration for the Imagination

We took a private tour of Stonehenge.  We went early in the morning (think before dawn) and were there before it was open to the public.  Generally the public must stay quite far back from the stones, but we got to walk right among them.  Very cool.  Very very cool actually.

We happened to have incredibly cold and windy weather, but the sun was shining, once it was time for the sun to be awake.

How many folks get this picture?  Under one of the stone arches?

Casting my shadow on Stonehenge.

We spent a day in Greenwich, and went to the Royal Observatory.  Where East meets West.  Where time begins.

OK, so probably lots of people have this picture.  Well, a version of it anyway.  I don't think many other people have this actual picture.

The views from the Observatory were amazing.  This is looking towards the City through the Queen's House at University of Greenwich.

Inside the Observatory...

You'd only have this shot if you were taking it at the same time that we were.  Lots of Olympic references throughout London.  

Also in Greenwich is the National Maritime Museum.  Lots of interesting stuff there... also a lot of schoolchildren.  A lot of schoolchildren.

This is Prince Frederick's barge. This was built around 1732 for Prince Frederick, eldest son of King George II. The measurement is about 19.2m (63 ft) long and is the largest object in the National Maritime Museum.

We toured the University of Greenwich's Painted Hall.  This is an amazing room!

One of the most fun discoveries we made this trip was London Walks.  For only a few pounds (or a few more dollars), we were able to join a guided tour of one of London's many interesting sights.

We did a Deathly Hallows Tour - this is the summary: Celebrate the release of the thrilling seventh film with London Walks' very own Harry Potter expert, let alone uber fan! Kontiki Richard leads you through the most magical bits of old London. The wizard's bank. A fantastical mansion where we'll relive the last tortured moments of Charity Burbage. A gas-lit courtyard packed with Potter atmosphere and twice used by the Harry Potter production team. It's a walk laced with tales of good and evil, magic and legend. all of it wovenround the elder Wand, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone and, of course, the Horcruxes.

Here are some of the things we saw....

This is where they held the release of the 6th book, and the inspiration for the Great Hall in the movies.  It is at Temple College (near the Temple Church, which you may recognize from another movie, The DaVinci Code).  

Though most of the movies were filmed outside of London, this building, The Royal Courts of Justice, were the inspiration for Hogwarts.

Leadenhall Market was used to represent the area near Diagon Alley in the movies.

This is one of the places thought to have inspired JK Rowling's Leaky Cauldron... the part that the Muggles could see at any rate.

This is Australia House.  They filmed the scenes for Gringot's Bank in the lobby here.  You can't tell from this picture, but if you could see it, you would swear that there should be goblins behind the counters!

You'll recognize this from the 6th movie - this is the Millenium Bridge that the death eaters destroyed at the beginning of the movie.

And this - though not in London - is the house in which Harry Potter lived when he was a baby, and the one in which his parents were killed by Voldemort.  It is in Lacock, an hour or so outside of the City.

I hope you are enjoying my memories of London.  Tomorrow I'll show you some things you probably have not seen, even if you have been to London many times!

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Classic London Sights

As  you saw yesterday, we were all over London.  We were incredibly busy.  And our cameras were constantly clicking, so I've got tons and tons of pictures to share.

So as not to overload everyone, I'm going to spread my recap posts over a few days and I thought I would start with the classic London sights.


The first thing we did was take a ride on the London Eye.  Now maybe that isn't truly classic London, but it did work out well for our schedule (we arrived in London from San Diego mid-afternoon, headed to our rental flat and had about enough time - and energy - to head to the Eye, take a ride, eat some dinner and collapse).

Because of the orange and blue lighting, this is what your night pictures inside the Eye will look like.  Well, you probably won't have The Mr talking to his dad.  But you get the idea.

The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben's tower.  Because it is the bell that is named Big Ben.  You don't need to remember that though.  They'll tell you.  I suspect we (tourists) get that wrong a lot.

I like this view of Big Ben (the bell I mean of course)... from beneath.  To get this, however, you must stand in the street.  They have actually blocked off part of the street.  I suspect because so many of us (tourists) stand in the street trying to capture this view.

One of the most iconic sights in London is St. Paul's Cathedral.  Inside and out, an incredibly gorgeous building.

And this night shot of St. Paul's includes a couple of other London icons - the black taxi cab and the red bus!

Something else most people recognize is the Tower Bridge.  This isn't (as I suspect many tourists must ask a lot) the London Bridge (we were told this fairly often as well).    This is taken from inside the Tower of London, and in the foreground of the picture you can see remnants of the old Roman wall.  From when Romans ran London.  And pretty much everywhere else.  

This is taken from the other side of the Thames.  London's South Bank, a trendy area, with lots of art and food and activity.

And of course, the changing of the guard.  This is at Windsor Castle, and was very impressive.  

Part of the changing of the guard ceremony includes the band playing.

They were very good and played two songs for us.  One of them was "Singing in the Rain" and Michael Buble's "Still Haven't Met You Yet"!  The Queen's guard has a sense of style and fun.

Looking at these pictures makes me want to go back.  Tomorrow I'll share some familiar sights from a slightly different perspective.  Hope you are enjoying - if you've got any particular place that you'd like to see more of, let me know and I'll share if I can!

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London Recap - Overview

From A-Z, here's a list of the things we were scheduled to do... and we did all of this, and even added some!



Albert Memorial
All Hallows By The Tower Church
Bank of England Museum
Battle Of Britain Monument
BBC Studios and Post Production
Benjamin Franklin House
Big Ben
Brass Rubbing Center
Britain At War Museum Charitable Trust
British Museum
Buckingham Palace:  The Royal Mews
Cabinet War Rooms & Churchill Museum
Canterbury Cathedral
City Cruises
Cotswolds
Covent Garden
Cutty Sark
Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain
Duck Tours
Hampton Court Palace
Hard Rock Cafe
Harrods
High Tea
HMS Belfast
Imperial War Museum London
Kensington Palace
King's Cross Station
Leeds Castle
London Bridge Experience
London Eye
London Heathrow Airport
Madame Tussauds
Millennium Bridge
Monument Square
Museum of London
National Gallery
National Maritime Museum
National Theatre Backstage Tours
O2-British Music Experience
Olympic Stadium
Parlaiment: Westminster Hall
Piccadilly Circus
Port Of Dover
Princess Diana Memorial Playground
Roman Baths
Royal Albert Hall
Royal Observatory
Shakespeare's Globe
Sherlock Holmes Museum
Sherlock Holmes Pub
Southwark Cathedral
Spencer House
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Paul's Church
St Pauls
Stonehenge
Tate Modern
Temple Church
Texas Embassy Cantina
Thames Barrier Information & Learning Centre
Tower Bridge and Tower Bridge Exhibition
Tower of London
Tower of London:  Ceremony of the Keys
Trafalgar Square
Travel Bookshop
Victoria and Albert Museum
Wellington Arch
Westminster Abbey
Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum
Windsor Castle

Honestly, though I have spent quite a lot of time in London, this was a magical trip.  We even went to Platform 9 3/4 to get there!

Pictures upcoming!

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Tuesday Garden Party

I can't believe we are well into April - and my garden can't believe it either.  And I missed the first several Tuesday Garden Parties!

While we were on vacation, we grew a bumper crop of weeds.  Ugh.  Apparently, we had fabulous weather while we were gone.  Fabulous weed weather.

And since we've been back?  We've had plenty of rain, and almost no time to get out there to get rid of the weeds.

We did get some seeds planted - tomatoes and corn.  And basil.

And we planted some blackberries.

The strawberries look good (except for that massive weed - yikes!) even before we have done anything with them.

Some of our hot peppers decided to start without us...

And check out the peas!  We found them growing in one of our pre-compost bins.

Next weekend?  Project weed!  And we'll get to work on the herbs.  Plant a second batch of corn seedlings.  Hopefully just generally get that garden back under control!

Come on back next week to see what another week brings - in the meantime, check out An Oregon Cottage for her weekly Garden Party.

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Springtime In London

We had just the best vacation in London.  And we took lots and lots of pictures.

I've got some recaps coming up, and we've got our garden coming along... but for today, I just wanted to share some beautiful daffodils.  Doesn't a daffodil just feel like Spring?  Spring is hope and renewal, a welcome sight after a long winter.

The rest of these are all straight out of the camera.  This is the original of the photo above.  I cropped and changed some of the light and saturation to get the effect above.  I wanted to get a bit of a watercolor look, and I liked the bit of red.

This is one of my favorites - I like a single (well in this case, two) flower in focus and a field of flowers in the background.

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What Would You Do?

We're hitting all of the major tourist spots when we go to London (and quite a few other places as well).  We also found a few "off the beaten path" things to do, and I'm really excited about them!

We're taking a private tour at dawn here:

Most tours don't allow you past the chains that you can see in the lower right-hand corner, but the private tour allows us to walk right up and among the stones.  That is going to be very cool I think.

We're also going to see the Ceremony of the Keys here:

The Ceremony of the Keys is the traditional locking up of the Tower of London and has taken place on each and every night, without fail, for at least 700 years. The importance of securing this fortress for the night is still very relevant because, although the Monarch no longer resides at this royal palace, the Crown Jewels and many other valuables still do!   

What would you do if you were going to London?

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Cheers!

We are counting down to our vacation - two weeks in London!

We've had a fantastic time planning this vacation.

We've got a map of all of the places we'll be seeing:

View London 2012 in a larger map


We scheduled out our days:

We made a book with information about all of the places we are going to see:

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MHJNtvwhQsEDOEPiYbotsf4FXUEjkLK2Ftqrnv04S6k/edit)



We've got shirts with our special logo:

Does this make us crazy?  ;-)

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A Very Thankful Day

Today we made turkey on the grill...

... French Onion Soup...

 (doesn't the turkey look fantastic?!)

... dressing, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes...

 ... cranberry sauce...

 ... green bean casserole...

... homemade dinner rolls...

 ... and pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes.

The Mr and I had dinner with his parents, we shared stories (many we have told before, some new) and enjoyed our time together.  After dinner we skyped with my parents, my sister and my beautiful little niece (on her very first Thanksgiving).

Some of us took naps...

Tomorrow?  I tackle this!

Hope you had the chance to count your blessings on this special day.

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