London Part 3

For the woman who has everything does that include a diamond encrusted dagger? It does for HRH Queen Elizabeth II. We found that out when we toured the Tower of London and the exhibit of the crowned jewels. Since it was summer it was crowed, but still worth the wait. If I had been any bigger I would not have fit in the spiral staircases of the tower itself. As it was my hips were touching the sides.

On the way there we did some shopping and I was desperate to find some shoes that would be comfortable with all the walking around I had already done, and being overweight, my feet were already swollen. Not to mention we had two three more weeks and several more countries to visit.

Other than finding that looking at the street map and finding the tube makes don’t jive. We were still able to get to the places we wanted to go to. The key, finding the station nearest your destination, and the helpful Londoners that had mercy on us after watching us looking at the map for a while. Someone would come up and ask, “Can I help?”

“Yes please, we are trying to get to Harrods.” They were very nice and friendly. We met a man with a Scottie dog, and he let us take a photo. We did make it Harrods, landmarks in shopping for me. Behind the store were some nice homes, we looked around and found that some had blue plaques if someone historic had lived there. We found P.J. Wodehouse’s former residence. We also went into Harvey Nick’s, I wanted to see were Pasty and Edwina would shop at. If you don’t know that is a reference to AB FAB, shame on you.

After days of eating in our room we finally shook of the jet lag and made it to dinner. We had a coupon for a restaurant/pub. They claimed to be the oldest pub in London. It was the coupon that drew us in. When we arrived at the place the restaurant part wasn’t open. We got a pint down stairs and looked for a place to sit. An older gentleman waved us over. He asked where we were from and told us about places around the world he had traveled to. He had never been to the states. He was nice and we let him just talk. After a while he got up and put on a heavy wool coat that was bright red. (As in, The Red Coats are coming!) Since it was July I was shocked he could wear that coat, I figured it was his job.

We had a nice meal and after words the staff asked if we wanted to take a photo next the napkin. What napkin? The one that we are supposed to believe it was used by Queen Victoria. Whatever the case might be, it made for a fun photo op!

The next day we got up early and took the tube back to Heath row and got on our plane to Geneva. We got to see the crown jewels, the British Museum (No one seems to mind if you touch things) and Harrods, all the places we wanted to go see. We had wanted to be in the UK for our first European city, at least we knew the language, and the next countries were going to be interesting. On to Switzerland!