London Tour & Sherlock's Home

This morning we decided to have breakfast on level 1 instead of the restaurant on the ground floor. It was very crowded as you’d expect but quicker as the buffet food was already prepared. We had another full English breakfast and it was again really good. It filled us up for over half the day. Our day bag was packed so we walked down the street with our umbrella just in case and boarded the city tour bus and upgraded to a 48 hour pass as we don’t think we’ll see everything we want to today. The double decker red bus was really fun.

London City Tour on the Red Bus

London city is huge and there are way too many sights to see all at once, especially as we wanted to get off and stop at some places. We passed places like Notting Hill, an apartment building where some of the Beatles used to live, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, the church where Oscar Wilde got married, 10 Downing Street, it was pretty amazing to see all of these famous places. On the way to our first stop the audio guide we were listening to was telling us about the blocked windows on some of the buildings. Back in the 18th and 19th century the government used to impose a window tax. Basically this meant that if your house had 10 or more windows you had to pay this tax. People got around this by boarding or bricking up the window to avoid paying the tax. This is where the term ‘daylight robbery’ originated. This concludes today’s lesson. 



Our first stop was 221b Baker St, the fictional home of Arthur Conan Doyle’s world famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. We grabbed our tickets from the Sherlock Holmes museum next door and waited in line. One of the staff were dressed in a Police Bobby’s uniform outside collecting tickets. As we walked up the stairs, the creaky floorboards led up to the sitting room where ‘Dr Watson’ was waiting for us with Holmes’ and Watson’s original belongs: books (passport, tea sets, furniture including his sitting chair and even a chemical set was displayed. Of course, there was also his original hat, pipe and magnifying glass on display. Dan posed for a picture and signed the autograph book. Each room had a recreation of different scenes from various Sherlock Holmes books using plaster models. It would be safe to say that Dan enjoyed it more than Ev.


After the tour we went to the museum gift shop next door. Dan bought a graphic novel of ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ and we bought a couple more magnets.

His House

“Elementary my dear Watson” Sherlock Holmes never said that. I did! Boom!

The old 'Gun in the book' trick

Watson & Holmes and some chick, probably his mum.

Next we were on to Trafalgar Square and rested for a while. We took some photos of the square itself and took photos of the four lion statues guarding Nelson’s Column, so named to commemorate the death of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.  In the distance we could see Big Ben so Ev pinched it like it was a lego block.

We walked down the cobbled streets to the Convent Garden which was full of street performers, market stalls and other stores selling English Tea and clothing. One of Ev’s friends suggested we check out Ella’s Bakehouse, which we did and she does make very good cupcakes! Down in the open food court we heard a String Quartet play and it set for a lovely scene. We had a quick walk through the entrance of the Royal Opera House then went back out to the streets towards Leicester Square. On the way, stalls selling half price tickets for musicals caught our eye and we bought some for the Phantom of the Opera. Ev has always wanted to see it. We carried on towards Leicester Square and enjoyed the gardens. Heading towards the bus we passed more street vendors (that didn’t hassle us) and the common red phone box.

Our next sight we saw was Westminster Abbey and the decadent golden Big Ben clock up close. They say that Ben’s minute hand is so heavy that it takes a whole hour to rotate. J Lame.

Subway Sandwich whispers to guy on right: “Eat me”. Guy on right abruptly replies: “Yo Brother!, You watch what you say next to them peanuts. You ain’t da only fast food ‘round here.”

Anyhoo, the Parliament Buildings and London Eye were overlooking the River Thames and we drove around it from the back, followed by St. Paul’s Cathedral which looked spectacular with its pillars and gold statues decorating the place of worship.

We driving over the Tower Bridge and saw the detail in the towers and along the walls. It was a great view of the river.

We jumped off... at this the bus stope and walked to the Tower of London. It was getting late so we only had just over an hour to see the sights but we really only wanted to see the Crown Jewels so headed there first. On the way we read boards displaying the history of the western wing of the castle collapsing in 1240 and in 1841 the entire castle burnt down from a fire in the gun workshop. The Crown Jewels were magnificent. Unfortunately no photos, but we bought the book. We also saw the 7 Black Ravens and the Armour Room in the White Tower.

We boarded the bus and decided that we needed to get some clothes for Phantom of the Opera tomorrow night and thought Harrod’s would be a good place. It was good, but very expensive so we walked to The Gap. Dan finally had a pair of jeans and Ev bought a nice dress. Now we’re ready for a night on the town. Believing we weren’t too far away from the hotel we started walking but after 10 minutes our tired feet from a full day of walking had caught up. We hailed a cab and drove a further 15 minutes. The map was very deceiving. We arrived home at 8:30pm. Room service was in order. Dan had a Pepperoni Pizza, and Ev had chicken nuggets and chips. Both were very nice. This hotel has been very good.



Dan had a few drinks and watched Tomorrow Never Dies again and Jaws 2 and Ev fell asleep straight away.
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