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Trip to London City

19 - 21 December, 2003
This is probably one of the most important cities in the UK and of course the capital city of England. So a friend, Susana, and I decided to go and have a look to what this city has to offer. It is worth noting that Susana did an excellent plan and we happened to see most of it in the record time of 3 days! The trip was planned as follows:

London Tower

I suggest [London Bridge] and walk through the Thames Park eastbound after crossing London Bridge.

The first thing we decided to do before we were admitted to check in was goingo to the Tower of London. One of the first fortesses in London and nowadays home of the Crown Jewels. Believe me, it is worth the £13.50 you pay to enter there but you need to spend at least 4 hours to get to see everything.

up: Yeoman, the tower keepers, down: entrance
right: The building where the crown jewels are kept

Natural History Museum

[South Kensington]

This building is quite big! I thought people in US were the ones that liked with big things but I forgot a lot of them came from this part of the world! The Natural History Museum was built in the XIX century and is a truly nice piece of architecture. We had little time so we didn't go further than the main hall but that was again impressive. Also, as most of the museums in London, it is free!


left: top: outside the nhm, bottom: main hall
right: nhm main hall

Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus

[Leicester Square] or [Picadilly Circus] or hop on a bus!

Fancy some shopping? Well, you may find interesting the road that connects Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus (No circus in there at all! Just a roundabout). Leicester square is filled up with little souvenir stores as well as cinemas and Trafalgar square (which some teacher mentioned in my early english classes) is the house of the National Gallery. Couldn't enter because as I said, too much to do in too little time. No pics of this, sorry. Don't know what happened to them.

The Soho and Chinatown

[Leicester Square] and just walk around

Fancy more shopping and perhaps some chinese food? Well, very near Leicester square is the so-called China Town, I still don't quite understand why the term of town as I saw only 2 streets with chinese restaurants and shops, but well. Also you may want to walk around towards Oxford street and see how many stores are around. That whole zone is called Soho and perhaps is the biggest shopping area I've ever seen (besides México City Centre, hehe). I promise pictures in the next stop.

The Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben

[Westminster]

Located in Westminster, the let's call it "rich" or fancy city next to London where Her majesty the Queen lives, the Houses of Parliament are other of the enormous things I saw in London. This people had no measures! But I need to concede it is impressive how well maintained everything is.

The Big Ben as you might or might not know is, in fact, part of the Houses of Parliament and actually Big Ben is the name of the Bell that rings on every hour in that big clock, not the clock itself. Funny isn't it?
The Big Ben
Night view of the houses of Parliament & Big Ben

The British Museum

[Tottenham Court Road] or [Holborn]

Were you interested in some world culture when little or perhaps now?  Well the British Museum, apart from being an enormous building -again-, it has a lot of the most famous pieces of archaeology and antropology. Examples? Stones from the Parthenon, in Greece, the Mummies, from Egypt and the Rosetta Stone, which was the key to the unlocking of ancient Egyptian and Jerogliphic (or however it is written) Scripts.



Top Left: Entrance to the British Museum
Top Right: British Museum Main Hall
Middle Left: The Mummy
Middle Right: The Rosetta Stone
Left: Mummification of Animals

The Hostel

[London Bridge]

Definitely, I need to thank Frederico for such a good reccommendation. Our hostel (St. Christopher's Inn) was all we could need: It was cheap, near the city Centre (just 200m from London Bridge) and clean. If you happen to go to London and look for a nice and cheap place to stay, this is it. Thus I'd reccommend to book at what they call the Village.

More information at: http://www.st-christophers.co.uk

By the way, Susana was amazed with St. Christopher's Inn Bar. Perhaps you might want to go there. ;)
@ the St. Christopher's Inn bar
here too.

...To be continued (when exams finish)

Visiting London using the Underground and TFL Buses

One thing I really liked from London is its transportation facilities. So there's no need to go and pay an expensive hop-on, hop-off buses (around 15 pounds a day), just plan your trip and use the underground and TFL buses. A day travel through zones 1 and 2 (the touristic, central zones) costs little on weekdays and even less on weekends (a weekend pass is around 6 pounds). And it can get you wherever you want to go faster than any hop-on, hop-off bus. (If you go through the tube -underground- you don't get the view, true, but you can go by tube and come back on bus)

Visit: http://www.tfl.gov.uk for more information

The London Underground Logo is a Registered Mark from Transport for London