We set two alarms to wake us at 4:30 am for our flight to London, but somehow neither of them went off. We woke up in a bit of a panic a little after six, and everyone worked together really well to get us out the door lightning fast. We lucked into flagging a taxi right outside of our hotel, and traffic was on our side. We checked in for our flight 20 minutes before the cutoff, and we were so relieved to make it in time. Our flight to London was smooth, and the son was setting as we landed. We took a train from the airport and found our place. We were dead tired from a long day, which we hoped would help with the time change.
We started the day with a tour of public transportation options. We planned to take a bus to the Tower of London, but went on an adventure instead. This included buses shut down for a protest, a nice bus driver who took pity on us and drove us across town, getting on the wrong train along with some locals, and eventually walking the rest of the way through some really cool scenery.
We were planning on tea after the Tower of London, but our wandering around made us hungry, so we walked across tower bridge to the Ivy for cream tea. In researching for this trip, I looked at options for afternoon tea, but most of them had a lot of things my kids probably wouldn’t eat. Cream tea is just scones, clotted cream, and jam with tea. All super popular with everyone in our family.
After our little treat, we walked back across the bridge to the tower. We didn’t do the whole thing or wait in line to see the Crown Jewels, but we did some exploring. We walked around the grounds, and the kids even got a view of the moat from inside, like the archers once did.
We went into the white tower, and looked at all of the armor and weapons. They had some that was worn by Henry VIII, and you could see the shape change as he got older and rounder. The armor from kids and horses was really cool to see as well.
We needed to rest our feet for a few, so we found a shady spot and sat down to play a game. We played Guillotine, a game about chopping the heads off of nobles. The game is about French nobles, but it still seemed appropriate given that we had just seen the chopping block in the tower.
We walked by the ravens and learned about the mythology, and the kids loved playing an in old phone booth. It’s so foreign to them to think about having to be in a certain place to make a phone call.
We walked back across the bridge, and down the queen’s walk to London bridge. The walk was scenic, all along the Thames and passing the HMS Belfast.
Next we went to Borough market for lunch, but it was almost 5 pm, so kind of dinner? The market was incredible, with every imaginable kind of food. We wandered through the stalls, buying bagels for tomorrow and a chunk of Parmesan cheese for River to eat straight.
We got the most incredible sandwich from The Black Pig. It was covered in truffle Parmesan.
We ate right next to a beautiful church, and River was obsessed with the pigeons.
We got chocolate covered strawberries which, I guess, are TikTok famous or something. They were delicious, but not out of this world special.
We had a really big time change last night, and the kids have not been getting along perfectly, but there were some really sweet moments today.
On our way back to the flat after the market, we got to ride on the top of the double decker bus. We were glad that London limits charges for public transportation to 8 pounds a day, because we used a lot of trains and buses today.