The start of my sixth decade!!!

Well, this was the day!!  I woke up into my sixth decade and it all appeared to have happened quite painlessly!!  I opened my cards and got ready to go over to the main hotel for breakfast, and when we opened the room door, was met by banners and balloons that my friends had put up for me the night before without us hearing a thing, so it was a complete surprise!!

The weather was quite reasonable in the morning so, after breakfast, we caught the bus down to the London Eye as we had already booked a flexi fast track ticket to be used any time on the day.  On arriving you need to go into the ticket office where they validate everything and usher you into a room to view a 4D film, which is actually pretty good.  Seagulls seem to fly out at you, snow falls and you feel the flakes on your skin; it's all pretty cool really.  It doesn't take long to view the film then you walk a short distance over to the London Eye to the fast track queue and it was only minutes until we were actually in one of the pods.  There are security checks before entering the pod and if you have anything they consider dangerous, like a multi-tool (as my husband found out) they take it off you and store it for you.  You then collect it via the ticket they give you once you exit the Eye.

Here are some views of the queues and people milling around

It's amazing once you get inside the pods as they are really quite big.  I didn't count everyone who was in ours, but there were a fair number of people inside.  If you're not OK with heights, there's a handy bench type seat in the middle so you can sit down.  It takes around 30 minutes to go right round and, although I don't really have a head for heights, this didn't bother me at all.  In fact I loved it!!  I was just wandering around looking at the sights and taking photos and it was all over in what seemed like a flash!!  It was just a brilliant experience.

Inside the pod

Here are some views from the pod - sorry about reflections, but they are inevitable!

Railway bridge

Pod below ours

Houses of Parliament & Big Ben

Pod above us

After our trip on the London Eye, we stopped for a coffee then caught a bus again and got off at the stop for the Shard.  Now, this is expensive to do at any time, but walking in off the street is about £5 more expensive each than booking on line before you go.  However, the downside of pre-booking is that fact that you have to choose a day and specific time.  There are no flexible tickets like there are for the London Eye, so if you've picked your time and it's raining or foggy or visibility is just no good, then that's just bad luck!!  We were quite lucky as although it was cloudy it was still dry and visibility was reasonable.

Check-in and payment resembles an airport check-in, and there are also security checks much the same as the London Eye.  My husband's multi-tool was handed over and collected again after our visit.

Check-in for tickets to The View

Everything was well organised and everything seems to be automated.  We were shown to a lift and once the doors start closing, then off you go!!  No-one presses any buttons!!  You whizz up to floor 33 or thereabouts where you disembark the lift and are shown to another lift which then zooms you up to floor 69. From that level you can walk up to the upper floors to around 72 to the viewing areas.  The upper level is not covered, so on a rainy day you'd get wet!

The views from here are quite spectacular.  Again though, there are quite a lot of reflections off the glass, so apologies in advance!!

Tower of London

Tower Bridge & Tower of London

HMS Belfast

Thames looking towards the London Eye

Zoomed in on the London Eye

Panorama inside the Shard

Panorama inside the Shard

Panorama view from the Shard

Panorama view from the Shard

It was after lunchtime by the time we came down from The View at the Shard but we didn't go for anything fancy.  There was a small shop selling filled rolls and coffees just a stone's throw from the Shard which had chairs and tables on the pavement, so that's where we went!  And, believe me, the sandwiches and drinks that we had were very good value for money.

My delicious not-so-posh birthday lunch

(There were two sandwiches - I had already eaten one before I took the photo!)

As I was having lunch I spotted this girl carrying a little dog in her handbag.  She put the bag on the ground and the dog jumped out, and she had a wee bit of difficulty getting it back in there.  However, whether she was someone famous or just an eccentric Londonder who keeps her dog in her handbag, I have no idea.

We'd been way up there somewhere!!

After our lunch we caught the bus again and got off near to Tower Bridge so we could walk over the bridge and go to the pier to catch the boat to Greenwich.  Here are some photos I took on the way there:

Walking towards the Thames

Looking back at The Shard

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Tourist, or eccentric Londoner?

On Tower Bridge

That interesting character again!

Canons at Tower Bridge

It's been a hard day!!

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge & The Shard

The skies had clouded over considerably by this time and there was a flight of rain, but it wasn't too bad so we continued our boat trip in any case and headed off down to Greenwich for a short stop and to just catch the same boat back again.  There was just enough time to hop off the boat to take some photos:

The Cutty Sark is based here

Greenwich

Pillar box and telephone box using that special filter again

All too quickly it was back on board the boat to head back down the Thames.  On reaching the quay, we could see something happening involving a whole load of photographers and a small boat, as if it was just coming back home from completing some sort of challenge, but we never ever found out what it was all about. 

After disembarking and heading towards our bus stop to get the bus back to the hotel I saw a group of what looked like students, all wearing red backpacks and saw another opportunity to use that filter!!

Back at the hotel we opened a bottle of bubbly that we had brought with us and our friends had another surprise for me - a birthday cake!!

Very yummy birthday cake!!

For dinner that night we went to the Rose Garden Hotel for a meal which was very nice and afterwards there was a last drink at the bar before packing and bed.

I'm not going to bore you with the journey home as it was uneventful.  It was a good journey, again via first class East Coast Rail. As the weather was a little better on the return journey, here are some more photos of Berwick from the Borders Bridge.  Despite all my travels, this is one of my favorite views!!

All in all, it was a super break away with good friends who made my birthday very special.  I have happy memories to look back on and would love to do it all over again!!

First day in London and the last day of my 50's!!

We were up relatively early and I discovered that the shower in the bathroom was really pretty good.  You could set it to an ordinary shower or 'rainwater', which was pretty good.  After a reasonably good leisurely breakfast, it was time to see the sights.  We bought a 24 hours open topped 'Big Bus' ticket each for £30 and extended it for £6 to 48 hours, which would cover our whole stay and would mean we could use them as and when we wanted and be able to see the sights of London rather than be stuck on a tube train seeing nothing.  As the weather was actually quite good that morning, it was the perfect opportunity to take the bus right round the circuit so that we could see everything and get our bearings.

We stopped nearto Big Ben where we found a place for lunch which was actually very reasonably priced considering where we were!

It's actually the clock that is Big Ben and not the building

I almost forgot to say that the bus ticket we bought also includes a boat trip down to Greenwich, and you can use this as many times as you want, so you could pop down there in the morning for the market and a spot of lunch then catch another boat back to the docking point near the Tower of London.

I'm not going to include too many photos taken from the bus as most of them are at strange angles!!  Here are one or two that were taken from the top deck:

Rear view!

It was nice of them to put the banners out for me!!!

Trying out the black & white filter but picking out the colour red

We also tried out the Mr Whippy ice cream at the van on the banks of the Thames

Although we done the full circuit on the bus, we did stop off at Buckingham Palace for a wee look at the Queen's house!!  It was quite busy as some sort of event was happening and there were many people there all dressed up to the nines.  Luckily, the weather was quite pleasant for them.  The next two photos were taken using the black and white filter again, but just picking our red colours.  It was the perfect filter for London!!

Guards at Buckingham Palace

Guard at Buckingham Palace

From Buckingham Palace we decided to walk down The Mall which was still all bedecked out in Union Jacks, towards Horseguards Parade.

The Mall all bedecked out in Union Jacks

Trying out that filter effect again!

On guard duty

On guard duty

So, after a bit of a hectic day and a whistle-stop tour of the major sites, it was almost time to head back to the hotel, however no visit to London would be complete without a visit to one of its most famous stores - Harrods!!

We decided to splash out and have a coffee in their coffee shop, but it was busy and there was quite a wait involved before we could get a seat, so we left and popped over to a coffee shop on the other side of the street where we had lovely coffee and a cake at a fraction of Harrods' prices!!

Scrummy strawberry tart (well, it was the start of Wimbledon!!)

After a little bit  of shopping in Harrods we caught the bus back to the stop near the hotel then had a look around for somewhere to have dinner.  We found a nice looking London pub that looked nice - think it may have been the Pride of Paddington - but the meal wasn't that good really.  The interesting thing about this place though was the fact that you could feel your seat vibrating as the tube trains rumbled past somewhere deep underneath you!!

After a rather disappointing dinner, it was back to the hotel to refresh ourselves for the 'big' birthday the next day!!