Tired of walking for two days, I felt we were due for a bus tour of the city. Luckily, Big Bus Tours had a pickup spot right at our hotel, so we bought tickets and hopped on. It was a great deal - 17 pounds for an all day pass, letting you hop on and off anywhere along the route. And with buses coming along every 10-15 minutes, there was never long to wait. Here's a map of the Big Bus tour route (PDF, 3 MB).
Of course, sitting on the bus left plenty of time to take pictures, so there are TONS from this day. I'll group some of the closely-related pictures on separate pages, but this is still going to be a LONG page...
We switched to the blue bus line at Aldwych, and quickly made way to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we got off and looked around for a bit.
Then it was on past the Royal Exchange, and over London Bridge, which has a statue of a dragon guarding it. While on the London Bridge, we got a great view of the Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast. Just on the other side, we rode by the London Dungeon and the Britain At War Experience, with its V2 Rocket on the outside of it.Looping around, we got a nice view of the back of City Hall, then came back over Tower Bridge, which we got a few close-up shots of. We also got another nice view of the Erotic Gherkin and Trinity House while we were there.
From there it was around the Tower Hill area. There we saw some nice statues around the entrance to the Five Kings Guest House. Heading down along the Victoria Embankment on the Thames' northern shore, we got a nice view of the London Eye, as well as a statue of The Invisible Man. (The tour guide got a number of people with that one.)
That led right into the Westminster Palace/Parliament Square area, where we got off the bus for a while to look around.
Leaving that area, we headed on over Westminster Bridge, whose western end has a statue of Bodicea, who led the Iceni Rebellion, ravaging the Roman city of Londinium in 60 AD. The eastern end of the bridge has another impressive statue, this one of the British Lion. Heading south along Lambeth Palace Road, we got a nice view of Westminster Palace from across the Thames.
From there we dropped by Lambeth Palace, home of the head of the Church of England, and the Museum of Garden History. Grabbing a bit of lunch at a little place along the Thames there, we then turned up the road to the Imperial War Museum, where we spent an hour or two.
Heading back to Lambeth Palace, we hopped back on the bus and went back to the Parliament Square area, where we a pic of the south side of Westminster Abbey as well as an odd sculpture.
Hopping back on the bus and headed down
Buckingham Gate Road, and
further along the route.
In the interest of brevity, here's a listing of some of the
things we saw as we continued along on the bus:
We ended our bus tour at Tower Hill Station, fairly well rested and ready to embark upon the Jack the Ripper Walk.
| Day 4 |