10 posts tagged “london”

Here we are at Heathrow, waiting for our flight back to the U.S.  It was a great trip.  Yesterday we drove from the Villa in Tuscany to the Rome airport (about 3 hours).  We flew from Rome to London and stayed overnight in London to break up the trip back.

Hannah's watching Viva Pinata on the Slingbox as I'm typing this.  Here's my Heathrow tip:  T-Mobile hotspots are 1 pound cheaper per hour than BT's.  Who knew you could price shop for internet access in the airport.

That's all for now.

No trip to London would be complete without a trip to the "Tower."  Its like referring to NYC or SF as "The City."  In any case, we wanted to take our kids to the place where Henry VIII cut off Ann Boylen's head, in addition to several other grizzly beheadings (like Guy Fawks). 

It took 3 different trains to get there from our hotel, but it was certainly worth it.  We didn't have to wait in line to buy tickets because we bought London Passes, which get you into most museums and historic places withot waiting in line.

We started on a Beefeater led tour -- but it was really slow and there were about a million people on the tour.  So instead we rented the audio tour headsets, and went around using those.  It worked out great.  The kids loved it (even more than me.  The tour had the basic parts and in certain areas you could press certain buttons to hear extended information -- which Aaron wanted to do at every stop, so we did.)  All in all, the audio tour worked great.  It got us to see parts of the tower that we would not have gone to otherwise, and still left us time to visit the Crown Jewels and the Armor.  Visiting the crown jewels is funny because the building that houses them is designed to get thousands of people through quickly.  So its like a long line at Disney Land.  When you finally get to the crown jewels, you are ushered by them via a moving walkway.  Its kind of funny to be dragged by the crown jewels.

Pictures below show the kids and I being beheaded before going into the Tower of London (you get a discount if you leave your head outside the gate).  Then there is Kathleen and the kids standing in front of the TOL.  Note: the kids standing with the Beefeater too.

This is Hannah and Kathleen on the tubes on our way.  Note: Hannah's eyes are closed, but she is not asleep.

This is a picture of Big Ben and Parliment from the London Eye.

Street Performer:  Person in a suitcase gimmick....See the hand protruding from the top of the suitcase?  Is there a person in there?  We hear them talking.

Picture of the London Eye from the bottom of the Eye

Picture of the London Eye from a bit further away.

So after stopping to eat, we set off for the tube station, to take the train to the London Eye.  At this point its about 2pm London time, or 7am Pacific.  Basically, the kids did not sleep on the plane (neither did I), so we were all pretty pooped at that point.

We set of in the direction of the tube station, and because of some bad directions -- ended up going the wrong way.  At this point, Jason and Hannah had about had it -- both were basically falling asleep on their feet.  We finally made it to the tube station, and had about a 20 minute train ride to get to the station at the Eye.  It was another 5 minute walk to get to the eye.  It was a good thing we paid the extra for the Fast Track tickets, because waiting it line by that point would not have been an option.

So we made it one the Eye.  I'll put up some pictures (and eventually video) from the Eye in a seperate post.  The Eye worked out ok, but the kids basically were beyond over tired.

During the tube ride back to the hotel, both Hannah and Jason fell asleep on the train.   From the tube station to the hotel was a 5 minute walk.  We did make it back, but barely.

Needless to say everyone went to sleep pretty quickly last night.  They are still asleep, but I'm wide awake at 3:30am London time (as you can see from when this post was entered).

After a long but uneventful plane trip, a journey through Heathrow, a train ride, and a cab ride -- we made it to the hotel.  Its now about 1:45pm UK time.  Everyone is tired, but still alive (which wasn't necessarily a given).

Highlights of the trip:

• Luggage from our plane arrived on two different luggage carousels -- one was marked from Uzbekistan (or something like that).
• Taking many many large bags through Paddington Station.  The kids helped.
• Stuffing five people, and four large suitcases in a London Taxi.
• The hotel rooms are nice, and we got a great deal on Priceline.

In a few minutes we are heading of to find something to eat and towards the London Eye.

We made it thru security pretty easily. Seems like a light day at the airport.

We're relaxing at a late lunch in an airport pub. Got lots o time to kill before the flight.

Kids: good
Adults: Low Stress

6/13/07 -- Thru Airport Security

Last night was a flurry of packing. Clothes everywhere and lots of suitcases. Now we are almost ready. Jason has his graduation from Kindergarten today.

So tonight we booked a two day London Pass.  It includes fast track entry into a bunch of the main London tourist attractions plus public transportation (the Tubes).  It cost us about 219 British Pounds for all 5, so we'll have to see if it was worth it in the end.

We also booked fast pass tickets on the London Eye.  But when you book these online (via Expedia), you have to call the London Eye office to book your time.  So I may stay up past midnight just to make the call.

In getting ready for our trip, we had to get passports for the kids.  This experience was actually sort of fun.  First, we were able to apply for the passports at our local city hall.  We made an appointment, so there was no line.  Both Kathleen and I had to be there -- we both had to sign the forms.  The process takes quite awhile, about 15 minutes per kid.  We had to use the expidited service to make sure the passports arrived on time.

Besides the regular passport fee, we had to pay a service fee to the city and a fee to expedite the passports.  All in all, a costly service.  The passports all arrived (seperately) within the 2 week period they say, so it was definately worth paying the additional fee.  The kids are really excited to have their own passports and we can't wait to get them stamped in the UK and in Italy.

We're going to Italy!  Its Kathleen's parent's 50th wedding anniversary and they've invited us along with all of Kathleen's brothers and sister and everyone's kids to Tuscany.  We're staying in a Villa.  Its unbelievably exciting.  We're going to London for a few days in advance to see some of the sites there and to get over the time change.

We're still trying to figure out what sites to see when we go to London.  We'll do Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, but beyond that we haven't decided.  It'll be fun to see London with the kids.  I went with my family when I was a kid, and it was one of the best trips I've ever taken.  We were there two weeks -- and did a house swap with another family.  The only negative of the whole trip was when I got home, the kid who stayed in my room took apart all of my Lego models.

In any case, we've got some time before we go, but Kathleen and I have started to think about thinking about the stuff we need to do before we go.

I'm planning to spend some time at REI looking for cool travel luggage things, maybe some travel wear too.