We had booked tickets on a Big Bus Hop On, Hop Off tour throughout London for Monday. The weather was beautiful, so we sat on the open top deck, one on each side to better capture the sights by camera. The tour was over 3 hours long, and we passed all the iconic sites - Big Ben, Parliament, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace (about all we could see were gates and a garden), Hyde Park - and Knightsbridge, a posh area of stately homes and upscale shopping boutiques. It's also the location of Harrods, which we decided to explore. Their website declares it to be home to over 5,000 brands and eight floors of luxury. After checking a few price tags, we had to agree.
The restaurants in London are wonderfully diverse. As I mentioned in my previous blog, we ate at a Greek restaurant Sunday night, and Monday we had breakfast at Hayat, a small cafe run by an Egyptian family. My omelet was baked, and served with the poofiest pita bread I've ever seen! Monday evening we ate at Dickens Tavern for traditional English pub fare, and Tuesday morning at a Chilean coffee shop.
After checking out of our hotel, we headed back to Paddington Station and took the Heathrow Express train to the airport. We'd had to change our return flight plans, and ended up taking an early afternoon flight to Calgary, Canada, where I connected to a flight to Phoenix. Amy had two connecting flights, first to Seattle and then to Spokane. With the layovers, by the time I got home to Camp Verde, I'd been up for over 24 hours...with no sleep on the plane.
At one point Amy asked me what my favorite part of the trip had been. Easy. Spending two weeks with my daughter!
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