Friday in London

The last post was our Thursday in Balham, the first day we arrived...

Friday was another pseudo travel day and definitely a recovery day! After a SIX HOUR dinner at Bucci the night before we were exhausted so we slept in, and then walked around Balham a little bit and stopped in a Sainsbury's for something to drink that wasn't strange tasting water or bad OJ...

Then, to London proper!It was amazing, I'm obsessed with the Tower and the Tower Bridge as historical buildings and was thrilled to get a chance to see everything. The best thing about Tower Bridge Hill stop on the Tube is that the first thing you see when you walk out is the Tower and the Bridge-- talk about a great welcome!

After we got settled at our new hotel, we went out for a walk...

Church across the street-- in the basement was a little pub!

Detail on the front doors

Lamppost on Tower Bridge

Lamppost base on Tower Bridge

Bridge detail

Walking down the bridge

Boats coming up the Thames

Butler's Wharf

Looking up Tower 1

Bridge Detail

Bat-mo-building!

Tower Bridge from the far side of the Thames

Mosaic of old London Bridge

Old tie ups along the dockside

Griffins that guard the city limits

Athena on the old customs building

Lion sculptures from the menagerie exhibit at the Tower

There were all sorts of neat iron sculptures around the Tower, this one was an archer in the tower!

The walls and White Tower from outside

We walked about three or four miles that day and our feet were KILLING US when we got back, but a quick dip in the hot tub and foot baths at the hotel helped a lot! We walked over to The Crypt (the pub in the basement of the church) for some dinner and while it was pretty good, it wasn't nearly as creepy as we were hoping it would be! The pictures for that are on my phone, so they'll go up later. 

London Calling...

We left Atlanta on Wednesday evening and had an overnight flight to London-- we were pretty excited about this since we could sleep on the way there and avoid some serious jet lag.

WRONG!

Delta... I am disappoint. I mean, like seriously disappoint.

We were not supposed to be in front of the lav, and yet we were. We were kept up all night by flushing and a very bright light and the door rattling. UGH. Then, the flight attendants ignored me and made a point to bump Jeremy with their butts every time they went past. Seriously?

So, we didn't sleep very well, but we did arrive in one piece and so did our luggage. After a brief confusing run around Heathrow, we found the Tube... oh, the Tube. Everyone had gone on and on about how amazing the Tube is but we... did not enjoy it very much!

courtesy of the BBC

You should click on that and see if YOU can figure out how to get from Heathrow to Balham. It involves at least 28 stops and three line transfers and took nearly 2.5 hours. Never has it been more worth it to purchase early check in-- we were so ready to be in a room when we got there!

Luckily, the hotel was directly next to the station so we walked about ten steps and we had arrived. After putting our things up, we walked around Balham which is a very nice little town a lot like Decatur (but bustlier) with older buildings. 

These two churches were across the street from our hotel and had some amazing architecture! And, as you can see, the weather when we arrived was absolutely phenomenal-- we got SO lucky. In the 60's, sunny, and lightly cloudy from arrival to departure!

Thursday evening, we went to dinner with Elyse (my friend getting married) and her fiancee and their family and friends. It was at a little Italian restaurant called Bucci up the street from our hotel and it was AMAZING! There was so much food and wine and I've never had better Italian food; the proprietor, David, was very cheerful and wouldn't let us leave without drinking our weight in Limoncello...

We met Steph, Berry, and a few other of Elyse's longtime friends at the dinner and I've really not met friendlier people anywhere around. It was such a great way to get warmed up for the week :)

Steph

Jeremy and Berry

Me and Elyse