London, part 1

We arrived at Heathrow around 9pm on Wednesday, and by the time we had cleared the airport and taken the train into the city, it was nearly 11pm when we checked into our hotel. The full day of travel made it easier to get right to sleep and wake at a normal hour on Thursday, which we packed with sites. After a quick breakfast at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant, we parted ways, with the girls headed to St. Paul's Cathedral and the boys headed to the Tower of London (which Abby and Ruth had seen last fall).

The two pictures the boys shared from the Tower:

And the (significantly more) pictures from St. Paul's. Some highlights from inside the Cathedral:

There was an exhibit in the basement - these are effigies that survived the Great Fire of London

Horatio Nelson's tomb

Ceiling mosaics representing earth, air and sea animals

Mother and child statue

After touring the inside of the church, Abby and I decided to start climbing to the various balconies. The first balcony (the whispering gallery) is inside the dome and the second (stone gallery) and third (gold gallery) are exterior. It was 528 steps to the top balcony, but we made it!

Views from the Stone balcony:

And selfies, of course:

From the Golden Gallery:

Back on ground level on our way to meet back up with Kevin and Benji:

From outside Saint Paul's

It was a 30 minute walk to meet the boys at Millenium Pier, so we tried to see a few things en route

This is Leidenhall Market, where they shot some Harry Potter seens

We met up with the boys at the pier outside the Tower and took a 20 minute public ferry ride to Greenwich, which has nice views of both sides of the river and especially Tower Bridge:

Once you exit the boat, you are dumped into the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage site. The Crown Jewel of this is the Royal Naval college. We did not realize (there was a sign, but it is also easily recognizable) that SO many films have been made here, both inside and out. The list includes Pirates of the Caribbean, Les Mis, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Thor: Dark World, The Golden Compass, and The Queen. These pictures are inside the Painted Hall, which is called London's Sistine Chapel:

Courtyard outside the college (recognizable from Thor)

After the Naval College, we walked up the (long, steep) hill to the Royal Observatory, which is still where Greenwich Mean Time is kept::

Views from the top of the hill

The Observatory (this is the telescope house)

Cool moon sculpture

Straddling the Prime Meridian

This ball still gets lowered at 1pm every day so that boats can reset their clocks

Also, you can see that it was pouring briefly right when we got here

Lots of people taking pictures with their feet straddling the meridian. toes pointing to home, so we figured we'd join the trend

Looking out of the flag house

Checking out the equipment in the octagan room

After we finished looking at the buildings, we too some pictures with the "best view of London" behind us:

Once we were done (we ate dinner at an empanada restaurant in Greenwich Harbour), Benji was delighted to find that the fastest way back to the hotel was the Docklands Light Rail, giving him a new form of public transportation to ride. He and Abby moved right up front so they could watch the conductor and see out the front window to the rails: