A City Break…

If you follow Under An English Sky’s Facebook page, you will know that we have just returned from a two day trip to London. Our main reason’s for going was that both our girls passports had expired and because our one daughter is now 16 she now gets an adult passport and thus needed to be fingerprinted etc – so we had to go into the consulate in person so to speak. 

We decided that since we had to make the 3 hour trip anyway, why not turn it into a bit of a touristy trip. There is so much to see and do in London that you could comfortably spend a week there and still not have done everything.

I had 4 places that were a ‘must’ on  my list, and thankfully we managed to fit them all in.

This is our view from our hotel room, the London sky scape, can you pick up some of the iconic buildings?

Our first stop was The Tower of London. This landmark features heavily in England’s history and has repeatedly come up in our history readings over the years, so a visit was on the cards.

There is so much to see in this building, so much history, so many interesting things to learn and that we recalled learning about. This is also where the Crown jewels are held so there was much excitement about that.

The Tower of London is set right on the Themes River. The London Bridge forms such a lovely backdrop.

After spending a few hours going round The Tower of London, we took in a Themes River cruise. Now if you are ever in London I would highly recommend doing this. It is informative and really not that expensive. It was wonderful seeing all the famous landmarks from the comfort of the boat.

The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben never cease to draw a sigh of awe from me 🙂

This building below I had no idea about before this boat trip. It’s the London Aquarium and it is on the ‘To Do’ list next time we visit London!

The London Eye sits right next door to the Aquarium so I suppose that is two things on the list now!

A lovely view from the river…

and a lovely view in this mother eyes… 

Site number 3 for the list… The Globe Theatre.

Day two was earmarked to visit the Home affairs office to do the passports. We managed to get through that by 12H00 just as planned. The South African Consulate is on Trafalgar Square we decided to spend the afternoon at the National Gallery.

I just love Trafalgar Square. Look at all those old buildings surrounding it! Imagine what those buildings could tell us if they had eyes to see, ears to hear and lips to speak!

There’s a great big blue chicken in Trafalgar Square at the moment. I have no idea why or where it comes from, but I really think it is neat!

The National Gallery was awesome! We got to see some of the famous paintings that we have learnt about over the years in our Artist Study. I cannot quite explain the feeling to stand before a painting that we have come to know and love and to think about the artist and his life, forever immortalised in his work.

Friday night we took the girls to the West End to see The Phantom of the Opera.

This was such a treat. For years we have spoken of taking the girls to see this famous production, and to eventually be sitting with them in Her Majesty’s Theatre was so special.

Today (Saturday) dawned and we were all eager to get home. London is fantastic to visit, but we are used to a quieter and greener way of life. The bright lights and city bustle were beginning to loose their allure, so instead of jumping back on the tube to spend the last few hours in London, we opted to leave earlier than planned and head back to our beautiful Derbyshire.

What a wonderful time, but also a time where I appreciate the place that I call home 🙂