London - 1988 and 2010
I first visited London in 1988. I was travelling from Boston to India, and I booked a flight that gave me more than 12 hours in London. I took the train to central London and spent a day looking around.
22 years later, in 2010, I went back to London, this time for 5 days. I spent 2 days in central London, seeing all the things that have made London a popular tourist destination. I watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and went to Windsor Castle after lunch. The next day, I took a bus tour to Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bath. On my last day, I took an early morning train to Edinburgh, and made the short walk from the station to Edinburgh Castle. The 'Royal Mile' is a 1-mile walk from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, with shops, taverns and quaint buildings lining the street. The day passed too quickly, and I took the late night train back to London.
There are no more pigeons at Trafalgar Square, and trash cans have been removed from most public places. My trip was June/July, so I was not able to go inside Buckingham Palace, which is only open to the public from the end of July to September. I will have to make one more trip just to go inside Buckingham Palace. I bought a 3-day London Pass, and a 1-week Travel Card for the Underground. London's Underground is so convenient and so easy to use. The weather was perfect, with no rain at all.
London is a city filled with pomp, history and ceremony. Standing outside those buildings, one can almost hear the echos of knights and royalty, as they lived and rode those streets.
Click on the picture below, to view the photos.
