Day 13 London

We woke to another cold day but very blue sunny skies.  There were too many possibilities for where to go today and we struggled to make a decision so we decided to follow day 1 of the Lonely Planet guidebook we bought yesterday.  This meant starting off at Trafalgar Square....a familiar sight.

The blue rooster was less familiar...apparently added to the plinth in 2013....with some controversary as not wanting it to be associated with France.  It is a gorgeous cobalt blue colour.

It was now opening time for the National Gallery (the building behind the rooster overlooking the square), so we went on in. Some of the rooms were closed today due to staff being on strike, but we saw enough to keep us happy....

Including this one by Leonardo DaVinci....

We then headed down Whitehall...past the Mall

Great Scotland Yard...

passing No 10 Downing St

And annoying Cam with my obsession with the phone boxes...

before arriving at the magnificent Houses of Parliament.

The sun was so bright it was hard to get photos!

There's something cool about Big Ben....and there were plenty of other tourists sharing the experience!

We walked back to Westminster Cathedral but decided not to pay £20 each to go in as we've seen some incredible churches already in the last week.

Instead we walked back over Westminster Bridge to the London Eye. While crossing the bridge there were a series of street magicians all doing the guess which of the 3 cups the ball is under trick....trying to get people to gamble £40....it was so obvious it was rigged as we saw people supposedly winning money off them, but it seemed obvious to us it was a set up....amazing how many people seemed to be taken in though!

The queue for the London Eye was pretty good and with such a great day we knew the views would be optimal.  As part of our ticket we got a short 4D experience....where we had to put on silly glasses and we virtually flew over some of the sights of London with a birds eye view...including having white stuff fall on us (fake snow) and steam around us. It was a bit pointless but still fun.....and I didn't get suckered into buying photos of us today.

So now it was time for our "flight" on the London Eye....

We got into our pod with about a dozen other people (can hold up to 28) and slowly began our journey with amazing views of London. I'm not keen on heights but there was nothing scarey about this....and hard not to take too many photos as the view and angles changed.

Great views of Buckingham Palace...

And 30 minutes later it was over.

Took a few more photos outside the Palace of Westminster...

And now we were starving again.  Our next stop was to be the Tate Gallery, so we headed in that direction and typically there were no food places in sight! We walked a very long way and then on past the Tate until we finally found a pub. 

Thankfully it turned out to be a bustling place and the bartender was very friendly and suggested we sit upstairs in the "spying room".

Cam had his 1st beer in an English pub (just a half of their local lager) along with a burger

and I decided to try toad in the hole without actually  knowing what it was. I figured as long as it wasn't seafood it would be fine as I was so hungry. We googled it while we waited and discovered it was sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter with a pool of gravy and vegetables.

 When it came it looked awful, but tasted really good- the veges were parsnip and carrot chips with broccoli - the sausage being my least favourite part. 

Back to the Tate we headed (pausing at more lovely red phone boxes...haha)

More nice paintings but we realised there were 2 Tate Galleries and this was not the modern one! Still plenty to look at and some art we liked...

Yuck!

And some not so cool. There were also a few strange video screens of static etc that is supposedly art...just like at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. We don't get how they warrant gallery space!

We still had time left so from a quick review of our guidebook decided to check out the Natural History Museum in Kensington.

The building itself is absolutely stunning....and the entrance with the dinosaur skeleton definitely memorable.

Some pretty impressive displays, but too many kids here for our liking.

We did find an area that was about the mind, and much of it was what Cam has studied for psychology. We had a bit of fun watching video of a crime and then trying to answer questions about what we saw and trying to identify suspects....the mind can do strange things!  Cam was better than me at noticing things.

We then learnt all about reproduction...

And how hormones work....

And checked out some minerals...including precious ones.

Feeling tired we headed back to our hotel....deciding to go the long way around the Circle Line just for the fun of it. Was good to have a seat and just take in the weird and wonderful people using the underground. We both are quite sniffly but not too miserable.

Now in our rooming eating dinner from Marks & Spencer tonight. Cam is watching England v Wales rugby on tv. Have to switch hotels in the morning as part of our football package deal....I hope it is worthwhile.