Tag: London

Travel

Stonehenge and Windsor

I’m starting to convince my co-workers that business trips are better if you go out and see the sights rather than work in the hotel between meetings. We arranged for a jet-lagged visit to Stonehenge and toured Windsor Castle.

Windsor is next to Eton, home to Eton College, founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. I took a picture of the Eton Walk and decided to try it out one afternoon.

It was much longer than I expected, and the northern section takes you through some fairly sketchy underpasses where no one could hear you scream, but overall it was a nice jaunt. Would have been better on a bike.

Windsor sunset

Stonehenge

Me and Mr. Bean

Windsor tree-lined path

Getting a good shot of the Widwinter Sunset direction arrow at Stonehenge

Eton College Chapel

The rook of stonehenge

Windsor

The George, Eton

Shackleton statue in London

Eton

Egham, UK – John Wesley passed this way and preached in 1744

Windsor castle guard

The Long Walk in Windsor, UK

Windsor, UK

Catholic Church of St. Edward the Confessor, Windsor

Thatched-roof home by stream in Wherwell, UK

Windsor castle

Railroad bridge in Eton

St. George’s Chapel – Windsor Castle

500-year-old home in Wherwell, UK

Eton

Windsor

Eton boys

Stonehenge chocolate

Tourist shop in Windsor, UK

Old thatched-roof homes in Wherwell

Windsor

Shadow under railroad bridge in Eton

Trees in the morning – The Long Walk in Windsor, UK

Stonehenge

The Long Walk in Windsor, UK

Windsor castle vine

Eton graffiti

Breakfast in Windsor.

Tags London

Family Travel

London 2018

Got in some touristing during a business trip to London –

Oxford city tour and countryside bike tour
Lots of tourist sites in London, including As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe, The Churchill War Rooms, and the Tower of London
Windsor Castle

A few of the many photos below –

The Globe Theatre (Shakespeare) – London

Windsor Castle

Hyde Park

Royal Albert Hall – went to BBC Proms

Bridge – Hyde Park, London

St. Paul’s cathedral

Ponchoed tourist

Cannon – Tower of London

London

Windsor Castle

New graduate – Oxfrod

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

St. Paul’s cathedral

Shakespeare’s Globe

St. Paul’s dome

Guard – Tower of London

Bloodshot eye

Tower of London

Swan – Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park

Bridge of Sighs – Oxford

Don’t call me beefeater

St. Paul’s cathedral

Tower of London

Oxford

Windsor Castle

Oxford countryside bike tour

St. Margaret’s church – Binsey, Oxfordshire

Tower Bridge

St. Paul’s cathedral

Look left, look right, look both ways

Windsor Castle

Raven at Tower of London

Tags London

Travel

A weekend in London

In 2014 I had a quick business trip to London and did some touristing. Here are a few highlights beyond the usual sights, from an email I sent to a friend who was visiting a few weeks after me:

Fat Tire Bike Tour – highly recommended. You end up hitting a ton of sites in a few hours and then you can decide which of those merit a return visit.
Camden Market

Camden Town — it’s a busy chaotic market that goes on forever. You can get lost in there. I liked it in a small dose and then went back to quieter locations. Be sure to go to the real Camden Market and not the rip-off one closest to the subway stop.
Note that the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace is only every-other-day in the Winter and Spring. You can look up dates on http://www.changing-the-guard.com/dates-times.html
There’s an LDS Visitors Center near Hyde Park that was fun to visit — a bunch of BYU Study Abroad students were there while their normal building is being renovated. https://www.lds.org/locations/hyde-park-chapel — it’s in a cool location by many of the Embassies and the science museum.
One other place that was fun for a quick evening visit was Piccadilly Circus — kind of a Times Square vibe (with many of the same stores, including the M&Ms Store). It’s packed with tourists and I only stayed for a few minutes, but it was cool to see once. That and Trafalgar Square are good for street performers.
If you’re a Shakespeare fan, it was fun to see the Globe Theatre replica. You can also see a First Folio in the British Library.
If you like Harry Potter, King’s Cross station has Platform 9 3/4 where you can pay big bucks to take a photo. I just took photos of people taking photos.
You can also hit 221B Baker Street if you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan.
I highly recommend Rick Steves London tour book — I had a couple of other books and his was by far the most useful. If you like his style (more opinionated than the usual “here’s everything you can possibly do” books) you might want to download his free podcasts with walking tours and museum tours. I listened to his British Library tour (30 minutes) while I was there and enjoyed it, although some of his jokes are painful. He has an iPhone app, but it’s poorly designed and probably works better as a podcast.