Westminster, Big Ben and Trafalgar Square....

Off we go.

If you know me, you know I can be an obsessive planner. I research, I read, I google, I bookmark, I read again. You have to have a plan. This was no different. I had a spreadsheet and itinerary plotted out each day. Prebooked tours lined up and whatever else we could fit in that day. I am practical. Our days were basically broken down by area. Since our hotel was in Westminster that is where we began.

First stop was coffee for Lauren. We had a nice little coffee shop right down the street from the hotel.

I had immediate first impressions about London. It was very clean, for a city. The buildings were very short, for a city. They drive on the wrong side of the road, so on the street they literally have written "look right" or "look left"  in the roadway so you don't get run over by a car. And you would get run over, pedestrians do not have the right of way.

There were some really really weird trees there. They kind of had knobby ends, looked dead and didn't show any signs of being able to bloom. Is this intentional? I haven't found out yet. 

The residential doors were odd. What is missing from this picture?
 

Where is the doorknob? The majority of residential doors were like this or they had a doorknob in the very center of the door.

We walked over to Westminster Abbey. The first of some of the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen. We paid the admission, had our bags searched (bags are search everywhere in London and Paris before admittance), got our audio headsets and began our tour. It was clear, concise and easy to follow.

Another note. Most of the places we toured are not lengthy. The audio tour keeps it to about an hour to go through the Abbey. Then you are done, there are so many people there, they don't want you hanging out.

We viewed Big Ben and walked past Parliment. And that was my plan for the day. I was keeping it simple since were were going on no sleep. But since it was only about 4 we improvised.

Continued down the Thames, through a beautiful park, and made our way to Trafalgar Square. We decided to eat dinner at a pub.  And we ended up here.

Pubs in London are a bit different than here. You seat yourself, decide what you want and then go up to the bar and order your food, pay and they bring it out to you. This was Lauren's area. I planned the activities, she was in charge of the food. The food was normal pub food, burger, sandwiches, etc. The bacon on my wrap was a little sketchy though, it kind of looked raw, but it was warm. After a few bites of it I decided to take the rest off.

After dinner we headed to the National Gallery, open on Friday nights and free admission.  This was the first viewing of many Monet paintings.

When we were done, we made a quick stop to purchase a scarf I had seen earlier (I wore it all week, it was chilly!) We headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Stay tuned, tomorrow we visit Kensington Palace.