London

To London – Saturday 28 June
We had a lazy start and wandered to the train station – caught the fast train to London, Waterloo, dropped down into The Underground, Northern Line to Totenham Court Road, changed to Central Line and popped out at Queensway (132 steps underground!) – five minute walk to our hotel and we were home.
Not to waste the daylight hours we embarked on a journey through Kensington Park, Hyde Park, past Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square across the Thames and joined the queue for the London Eye. Our birdseye view of Big Ben. St Pauls, etc etc was fabulous.

We stopped for some dinner on the way back, again dropped into the underground at Charing Cross and finally made it home. Every pub has either the World Cup or Wimbledon on big screen so it’s been easy to keep up

Sunday 29 June
Up and out by 7.30 – down 132 steps or lift! to Queensway on the Central Line, off at Oxford Circus, follow the signs up, down, along to Victoria line and came up at Victoria Station – breakfast was a banana, a baguette and a particularly bad coffee. We finally found Victoria Coach Station and joined a tour to Windsor Castle, Stone Henge and Oxford – all new to us.
The sheer size of Windsor Castle was incredible and in the 2 hours there we explored 1/100th or less! Eton College just a stones throw away spoke volumes of British prestigious education.

Stone Henge was just as I expected and continued the picture of life in ancient England that we were piecing together – 2500BC – those rocks are massive. Gary’s thankful I don’t want that size in my garden.

Oxford – a town which is itself a University Campus was clearly a keeper of elite, quality education and every stone quarried from the Cotswold’s lay there with pride.
Around every corner evidence of Harry Potter and his friends was in the air.
A genuine Cornish Pasty from Oxford was dinner plus a not-so-bad coffee from an Italian barista, and we arrived home about 7pm.

A quick stop at our hotel then out again, over the road, hired 2 bikes from Kensington Gardens and explored the cycle ways via a peak at Kensington Palace.
We topped off the day with an ice cream and turned in as the twilight completely faded – about 10.30.

Monday 30 June
Raining again – we declared today a shopping day – Covent Gardens, Oxford St, dinner near St Paul’s – fabulous restaurant – excellent food, wine and service. A perfect shelter from the typical English weather outside then a dash to the tube, 2 line changes and home.

To Paris – Tuesday 1 July
A bit more window shopping, a quick trip out to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge – a lot of development since we were here last 8 yrs ago – for the Olympics 2012

Piccadilly Line then Central line, raced back to our hotel, grabbed our bags, back down our 132 step underground – onto The Tube, couple of changes to Kings Cross St Pancras for the Eurostar to Paris at 3.30.