2010 London

This is the beginning of one big trip, this summer of 2010. with my good friend, Kevin. We start in London, for just a few days, and will be returning to it on the way back. Here's a view of the River Thames, with the Tower Bridge in the distance. Too cold, even in mid-June this year, to take a river cruise, but maybe that will happen later on the return part of the trip in July.

Contrary to how it appears, the first couple of days were partly cloudy, occasionally rained, and was cool. But the late afternoon opened up by day 2 to some great puffy clouds and some pretty vistas. A bit of greenery on King's Road...

This is a walking town - and we did just that! Even though there's the Underground that will take you to most parts of the city easily, you still walk, climb those stairs, and walk some more. I think we walked 6 miles that day, exploring the city.

It's handy that street intersections are painted with Look Left and Look Right for tourists.

It gets darn confusing!

King's Road is filled with interesting shops, eateries, and coffee shops, including this Starbucks, where we could get our wi-fi in. Unfortunately, our hotel charged $40/day for wi-fi. So Starbucks free wi-fi it was!

The Full English Breakfast! This is something like the Denny's Grand Slam -- eggs, toast (not shown), hash brown, sausage, bacon, roast tomato, sauteed mushrooms, and baked beans, and coffee. Rather enormous, it was a tradition we had to have once. The typical mid-week breakfast for Brits seem to be coffee and a roll or croissant.

The view from our hotel room at the Bailey's Millenium Hotel. We lucked out and got a top floor room with lots of windows.

St. Paul's Cathedral

Close up of the Tate Modern Museum, a converted power plant, now a modern art museum. This sits directly across the river from St. Paul's Cathedral, with the Millenium Bridge connecting the two sides.

The London Eye. We did not ride this, as it was cloudy and gray. Later in the afternoon, it cleared, and we wished we had. The weather is a bit unpredictable right now.