United Kingdom Trip Day 7: London, England

After a wonderful day at Stonehenge and Bath, which was exhilarating and long, I had planned for the next day to be a late start. We lounged around a bit longer than we had on any other day before getting out and about.

This phone box was a few blocks from where we were staying, which was handy as I had originally penciled in some time to find one on the trip. Luckily, I didn't have to, as we passed this guy many times during our stay. They are inoperable and locked, as people often use them as a urinal. 

I had made reservations for this pub & grill, The Roebuck, months before (like all the other ones). The reason? Scotch eggs are on their menu. See, I'm a big fan of Scotch eggs, but I can only find them at Renaissance Festivals or maybe a British restaurant. In other words, they are hard to come by. Turns out, you can get them, literally, anywhere in London. 

They sell these for 1 pound and 28 pence. I found these the day we flew in at the grocery store down from our lodging, and purchased 6. LOL You can get a single one in most corner shops.

That didn't mean we were going to skip our reservation, by any means. It was spacious and beautiful inside, and I ordered a cider and something to eat other than Scotch eggs.

Of course, we could see the Shard from our table.

After lunch, we headed over to King's Cross Station, as Platform 9 3/4 is there. For those of you who don't know, Platform 9 3/4 is where Harry Potter had to run through a wall to get to Hogwarts. The movie was filmed here for this portion, and, of course, there's a sign for visitors. You could wait in line, and you would be given a scarf to take a picture. I had no intention of doing that, but wanted a photo just the same.

There is a Harry Potter gift shop located right next to the sign, so we wandered around. I got a cute scrunchy for my hair, but lost it not long afterward.

We had time to kill before our main event that evening, so we wandered around the area for a while. We made our way over to St. Pancras Station to have a look around. Much like King's Cross Station and Paddington Station (where we traveled to Cardiff from), St. Pancras is also a train station. Unlike the other two, though, this one is an international train station. Look how gorgeous it is!

Because it's an international train station, it's fancier in just about every way. Here, you can see the inside from the main entrance.

This is one of the columnades that flank either side of the main entrance. An Underground Station is right at the end of this corridor to the left.

It's massive inside and fancy restaurants line the sides here, while a lower level is filled with a variety of shops. 

You can look down the side of this glass wall to see the shops below. I was more interested in the statue, the gorgeous, detailed architecture, and that massive clock.

After this, we made our way down to the Tower of London. It was too late to go inside at this point, which was fine. There is so much to do in London that you can't see it all unless you have at least a month to spare. Still, we wandered around a few sides of it, and a bit of Roman wall still stands not far from here.

I struggled to find it, though, so I was glad I got to see some Roman wall during our time in Wales.

Finally, we had to leave to make our way to our walking tour.

We met this guy, our tour guide, Andre Price, in Whitechapel. We were more than ready to take our Jack the Ripper Walking Tour, and Andre was an excellent and knowledgeable Ripperologist. 

 

We spent the next hour and a half walking the streets of Whitechapel and seeing all the places where Jack did his awful deeds. This tour was interesting because they used Ripper Vision - where Andre would project photos onto the walls in the places we visited, showing the scenes and crime photos. 

I didn't take any photos except these two, however, because I really wanted to focus on the tour. And, I'm glad I did. I highly recommend this tour if you ever go to London and are so inclined.

That wraps up London, Day 7. Only two more posts to go: Day 8 and random stuff.

I'm off to pack and get ready to fly South for the next 6 days. Until next time, friends.