Last Stop London

We spent five days in London and there was plenty to keep us occupied! On the first couple of days we walked kilometres and learned how to use the Tube, and we saw:

Tower Bridge
Trafalgar Square
Royal Horse Guards (including a changing of the Guard)
No. 10 Downing Street
Big Ben
Houses of Parliament
Westminster Abbey
St James's Park
Buckingham Palace

We then explored further...

• Spent time in Harrods where we covered most floors and marvelled at the expensive displays. In the jewellery department we were told 'no photos' and in the handbag department we were amazed at the ancient Egyptian decorations, complete with sphinx heads and cartouche writing. Exhausted, we sat down for  'tea' at a French Café in the sumptuous food hall.
• Walked across the Tower Bridge to the Tower of London where we took a fascinating tour through the buildings and grounds and learned about the violent history of the Tower from a Yeoman Guard (Beefeater). 
• Toured the British Museum which is full of ancient statuary, but the real highlight for me was the  Rosetta Stone. The Stone features two translations of the same decree in the three scripts that were common in ancient Egypt at the time; hieroglyphic, Greek and Demotic. It dates back to 196BC and was discovered in 1799. Nobody had ever been able to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs but in 1822 Frenchman Jean Francois Champollion, who could read both Greek and Coptic, finally did it and the rest, as they say, is history.
• Visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street which is full of Holmes memorabilia. It has the famously furnished upstairs room where Holmes and Watson spent their days mulling over mysteries, and next door there is even a café called Mrs Hudson’s Restaurant. Drank coffee in the café at Marks & Spencer, walked through Selfridges and then did the length of The Strand (now just called Strand) to the wonderful Twining's Tea shop.

Then it was off to Hong Kong for a night before flying home. Our hotel room was on the 27th floor and had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Harbour. Thankfully the room's air conditioning was effective as it was in the mid 30s outside and very humid which, after London, was quite a shock to the system. We ate delicious local food at Under Bridge Spicy Crab - located under an overpass - and spent time in the new and extremely modern Times Square building which has eight floors of designer shops and cafes, four floors of restaurants and then even more office floors.

Now we're home, wading through the photographs and trying to remember everything we saw and did. What a fantastic experience!

Tower Bridge

 

Tower of London

 

 

Trafalgar Square - Nelson's Column

Royal Horse Guard

Big Ben

 

 

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

 

Harrods

 

The Mad Hatter - outside Harrods

Inside Harrods

At the Tower of London

 

At the British Museum

 

The Rosetta Stone

 

 

221B Baker Street

 

View of Hong Kong Harbour from our hotel room

Dinner at Under Bridge Spicy Crab

 

Inside Times Square shopping centre, Hong Kong