June Adventures-Part 2

 Day 3: Today we toured the quintessential London highlights.  We met our guide Eric in the Lobby and with his help, we navigated the Tube (London’s’ subway) and made our way to tour Westminster Abbey and be awestruck at the massiveness of it and revel in the idea of so many famous weddings, funerals and coronations that haven taken place in a space you are currently occupying. 

We then took a brisk walk to Buckingham Palace to attempt to see the changing of the guards.  I say attempt because by the time we arrived, the crowds by the gate were so thick and impenetrable that it was very difficult for short people (like myself and our crew) to get a good view of the festivities.  We attempted to hold up or phone/cameras but many of the photos were just of people holding up their phones or cameras.   We did get to hear most of it though, so we know we made it in time, just difficult for us to witness and this was by far the most tourist laden place of our entire trip.  If you ever get to London to see the changing of the guard-get there 1 hour early and stand at the entrance of the gates so you can see what’s going on inside the gates and will have a great view of the procession leaving the gates.

After attempting to witness the changing of the guards, we made our way to the London Tower where we toured the ins & out of this historical landmark where the Crown Jewels are also housed/protected. 

  After our tour, Leah and I parted ways with my sister & niece and made our way across the Tower Bridge to meet up with 2 friends I met in an online pregnancy group when I was pregnant with Leah.  One currently lives in England and the other is from Utah, but happened to be on a trip with her husband at the same time we were in London.  The three of us arranged to meet up for dinner (with Leah in tow) and we had a delightful time reconnecting and meeting our English friend for the first time in person.  It felt like long time friends reconnecting after years apart-the best time of friendships.

 After our dinner, we walked toward the Shakespeare’s Globe where Leah and I said our goodbyes to my friends and joined my sister & niece for a Shakespeare play-A Comedy of Errors.  We experience the play at the Shakespeare’s Globe in the same fashion that attendees centuries ago would have watched a production from William Shakespeare himself.  Truly a surreal experience and the actors and costumers and stagehands were wonderful.

We walked back to our hotel, taking in the sights as we ventured our way back to the Bloomsbury hotel to pack up our suitcases in preparation for our next adventure in England.

Day 4:  After our last delicious breakfast in London, we met our driver/guide, Peter, in the lobby with all our suitcases and prepared ourselves for the next leg of our journey to Bath.  On the way, we would be making pitstops at Jane Austen’s house where she wrote several of her novels as well as where she was born and where she died, and Winchester Cathedral.  Our amazing guide really became a fan-favorite of our crew with his great sense of humor, taste in music and personality.  (All of our guides had great qualities and were very friendly, but Peter stood out mostly because he was the most surprising being that he was over 70, and even our teens loved him).  And given that Peter may have felt this same with us, he spent a little extra time and we took an unexpected drive-by detour to Stonehenge, in route to our magnificent hotel-The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa.  We’d hoped Peter was our driver to Oxford the next day but alas he assured us he was not since had a tour booked in London the following day.  We only had one evening in this spectacular hotel and quaint town.  But we made the most of it, exploring the streets of Bath until late in the evening, and enjoying the gardens the next morning before breakfast and meeting our driver to Oxford. (The last photo is of the Royal Crescent Hotel's cat-Alfie who even has his own Instagram page!