Leading up to our trip, we had roughly planned out each day. Day one was a boat cruise to Westminster, then hoping off to see the tourist sites nearby (London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace). Then we were going to walk to Hamley's, which according to Wikipedia is the biggest and oldest toy store in the world.
The night before, we had decided against the boat cruise. The nearest points of departure were 1-2 miles away, so we decided to take taxis to the city center rather than travel out of our way.
However, when we asked the front desk to call taxis for us, we were informed that the roads in the city center were blocked for a 10k race. A taxi could take us as close as possible, but none of us were really keen on walking into the middle of those crowds.
So we adjusted our plans, and decided to first visit Leadenhall Market. A covered market dating back to the 14th century, parts of the landmark were featured in the first Harry Potter movie (representing the area of London around Diagon Alley). It was a Sunday, but I had checked the website ahead of time, and it said that most of the retail shops would be open.
The website was wrong, so it was a short (but lovely) stop.
I saw that we weren't far from the Monument to the Great Fire of London. Miles had learned a bit about the event in school, and he and Lily were excited to see part of the area that had been affected by the fire.
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| The fire started in a baker's shop on Pudding Lane. |
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| The Monument |
Lesa and I took James, Miles, and Lily inside and began climbing the stairs to the top. We must have been more than halfway when Lily asked me to take her back down. Lesa continued on with the boys, and took pictures for me at the top.
When they came back down, each person received a certificate that said they had climbed all 311 steps. And I have to congratulate my sister, because it was really hot inside!
It was nearing midday, and Google maps still showed many streets blocked. So we decided to just start walking toward Hamley's. Our map said it would take about 30 minutes to get there.
We went across London Bridge...
I'll take a moment here to mention the weather. Parts of England are in the midst of a heatwave that is unusually long. The surroundings of concrete and the cloudless sky increased the already warm temperature. And, of course, I had forgotten my sunglasses at home. Fortunately there was a street vendor near London Bridge, and the best £5 we spent on this trip was on my new pair of shades.
As we walked, we discovered this great painted wall, which we thought would make great photos with the kids. I think that hunger worked against us, but we got a couple of pictures.
Everyone was getting pretty hungry by point, so we stopped by a pub for lunch. It was nice to get out of the heat, and the food was good.
After lunch, we headed off again. We stopped by the original site of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre...
... and walked along the south bank...
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| Millennium Bridge |
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| Bubble break! |
...before crossing the Thames again.
By this point we were all getting tired of walking, and we just wanted to get to Hamley's.
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| We hurried past Trafalgar Square |
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| Regent Street, nearly there! |
And we finally arrived! I didn't get any pictures of the outside, because we ran inside to explore five floors of toy fun. (It was super busy, and with no air conditioning it turned out to be five ultra sweaty floors of toy fun.)
The kids loved the Lego sculptures, particularly the Harry Potter ones.
It was definitely worth seeing, though I was a mean mum for not buying all of the toys (or any, but we did let each kid choose some candy).
Matt spotted this car covered in Swarovski crystals. It was something else.
By the time we left, we were all just done for the day. We found a Pizza Express nearby, and dropped in for an easy and kid friendly dinner.
We hailed taxis once we left the restaurant, and traffic was thick because the World Cup had just ended. Luckily our driver knew what he was doing, and we made it back to the hotel in a decent amount of time. I don't think I have ever been so grateful for a/c! The kids had done so well with all of the walking; I think that an app on Lesa's phone said that we walked about 7 miles.
We had another busy day ahead of us on Monday, so we got straight into bed and fell right to sleep.
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