She woke up in Istanbul and went to sleep in London on her birthday. Yikes! Boy, the old pocketbook sure takes a beating in London. One day in London cost about as much as 5 days to a week in Turkey. I’m probably going to catch flak over this statement but I found London to be a bit of a touristy rip-off. Geeze oh petes it cost $20 per person just to walk into Westminster Abby. Isn’t that a church? The house of God? A place of worship? An equivalent comparison in Turkey would have been the Blue Mosque which was free (they asked for a donation as you exited). The same could be said of Wats in Thailand and most places of worship around the world. It seemed like every time we turned around London was taking another big chunk out of my wallet.

Okay there were a lot of fun and interesting things to see in London and I did enjoy it but there are so many other world destinations that are far more exciting (to me) and cost tons less.

The hotel wasn’t too bad but the young, curt, opinionated, Brazilian girl who checked us in had me ready to spin on my heals and look for another hotel. Luckily we didn’t see much of her after that and the other two ladies were very pleasant.

We bought a 24 hour pass on the Original Bus Tour (Double Decker bus) that included a River Thames cruise. That was the best and least expensive thing we did in London. There are several routes that can be taken and we did them all. They took us to all of the top tourist spots in London.

Buckingham Palace

Eye of London

Tower of London

Westminster Abby

One thing I found very interesting about Westminster Abby nearly centered above the doorway is a statue of Martin Luther King.

Tower of Big Ben and the Parliament Building

River Thames

Tower Bridge

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This page was last modified: December 15, 2007