London in pictures

Part of the fun of going back to London was visiting with someone who has never been to London. I know I wore her out walking around all over the place, but I just loved being in my city again. The first day we had the best weather, and I wanted her to see the big sights. We took the tube to Buckingham Palace:

Then walked to Parliament Square to see Big Ben, the London Eye and Westminster Abbey:

We continued to Trafalgar Square:

And then to Leicester Square and caught the tube to dinner at Piccadilly Circus. After dinner, we walked to Kensington Gardens and saw Kensington Palace and the Albert Memorial:

The next morning we returned to Westminster Abbey for a communion service, and then spent some time around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. We also stopped in Fortnum and Mason, a department store:

We stopped in Covent Garden, where they have these random recreated phone booths:

We ate lunch and then went to the British Museum to see the Olympic gold medals.

Then we stopped by the Tower of London and Tower Bridge before heading to the V&A Museum.

From there, we went to dinner and then to see Mousetrap. We slept in as much as possible with the construction at the hotel and then headed out to Greenwich. We visited the National Maritime Museum, saw the equestrian track for the Olympics in progress and stood on the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory.

Then we did a bit more jumping around to see the Olympic rings, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the Millenium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral.

We stopped at Harrod's, the big department store, and then I had a brilliant plan to walk to this place for dinner that really wasn't a restaurant and was much farther than I thought.

We crashed early that night and slept in again. On Saturday morning, we made our way through the crowds at Portobello Market and found some cool things, including scarves for 1 pound. We also stopped at the Notting Hill Bookshop from the movie.

From there we went to Trafalgar Square where there was a big festival showcasing all of the West End (Broadway equivalent) shows. The performers from each show performed a song or two. It was extremely crowded, and they were counting people going in so it was pretty backed up. But we found a decent spot outside of the crowd on the steps of the Canadian Embassy. And War Horse was right in front of us. The Motor Museum had famous cars on display right where we were.

Then I said goodbye to London and flew back to Dublin for the night before my flight home.