We had a lovely surprise - Andrewjb PM'd me the other day to invite us to meet. We met today for lunch at a wonderful pub. Pictures below!  Andrew and his lovely Alena met us -

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or
(_{edited to correct spelling}

Based on that last picture, I'd say it was Richard Nixon you met up with.

Seriously, nice to put a face with a name, Andrew.

We had a fabulous day today. First of all it was Patty's birthday, so what fun to spend it in London!  Secondly, we had arranged to go on an all day tour by bus and boat.

We started the day by motor coach to Leed's castle. Our tour included a private guided tour before the castle was open to the public. Then we drove on to Dover. We had lunch at an Inn at the top of the hill and got a few pictures with the cliffs in the background. Very windy as you'll see in the pictures.  Then we drove on through dover, enjoying the view from the coach of the white cliffs, and the dover castle. That castle has alot of history from WWII.

From there we went to Canterbury Cathedral - OMG what a gorgeous church! Alot of work is being done to restore, actually clean the limestone. It's a shame King Henry VIII ruined so much of it.

We went on to Greenwich - you know, where time begins. We toured around where the Queens House there is, and what used to be the hospital for the sailors. It's now a maritime academy and a music academy. The chapel there was lovely. We boarded a riverboat there where we had reserve tables and were served tea and scone. The tour took us back to Westminster area.

Long day but very enjoyable. I'm uploading the pictures now to my same ofoto link for those that wish to view. I'll clean it all up when we get home. I mainly want to upload in case something goes haywire with the cameras, don't want to lose the pictures.

Thanks Linda.

We went back to Greenwich today because yesterday's time there was very short and we really wanted to go to the Royal Observatory. We stood on the Prime Meridian, 0 degrees longitude. That was quite cool. The museum there was pretty cool too with all the historic time pieces.

From there we took the river tour back down to Westminster. We took the obligatory pictures of Big Ben. Did you know that the clock is not Big Ben? The Clock tower is St. Stephens tower. The bell inside is Big Ben. Actually  - only the bell that rings on the hour is Big Ben.  Trivia for you. We spent a couple hours in Westminster Abbey and honestly you could stay there all day and not absorb it all.

A former co-worker of Patty's has a researchers badge into Parliament so she took us for a tour. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the Abbey or in Parliament. But we did go out on the terrace at Parliament (which was a big deal because we weren't allowed) and got pictures with the London  Eye in the background.

When I get home I'll clean up the pictures and add narratives so you know what you're looking at.

We leave in the morning to go home.

Linda_Howell wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 9:27pm:


That would have been just great Linda
a fine addition you would have made.
Andrew.

Welcome home!  Glad you were able to take such a fabulous trip.  It was nice to see Andrew and Alena as well.

Jerry