London Bridge is...

...not falling down! It is just a regular old street bridge. Not impressive at all, but some of the other bridges here are quite beautiful!

day 6---June 23---bridge day in London!

We slept in until 9, way tired from yesterday, and got walking! Hopped the tube to St. Paul's Station and arose to a lovely area with another huge column-like statue. Asked a guard looking guy what is was and he said it was just a statue, that Prince Charles got involved with the decision of what would be there and that was what it was. Funny response... We were in a totally new part of London for us, the business and financial district, lots of suits. It was a warm day with no clouds in the sky and life was good!

Walking along we turned a corner and there was St. Paul's Cathedral, lovely and huge. We went inside and did a tour, found Sir Christopher Wren's tomb, admired the paintings on the ceiling and the architecture of the whole place, and wished I could take pictures (not allowed), so I bought a book about it. You can hike the 500+ steps to the top to get beautiful views of the city, but we opted out on that one! We did get a cookie in the cafe in the crypt--that was strange buying food in the basement of a cathedral! At one point I went out one of the side doors to get an outside pic from a different angle and there was the Milennium Footbridge, one of the reasons I came here! We finished the cathedral, walked the outside, and we...

Walked across Thames on the Millennium Footbridge! I love the structure of this bridge. It had to be closed a few days after it originally opened because it was swaying too much and considered unsafe. Now fixed, it provided us a safe transport across the river and great photo opts of each other and of St. Paul's. I was in heaven on that thing, Cat doesn't care for bridges but she hung in there just fine. Another highlight!

We walked along the Thames and finally got to the London Bridge, just a plain old bridge for cars and people. Crossed the Thames again and walked along the river some more....walking walking walking! Saw the (replica of) the Globe Theatre, an old prison, shops and restaurants, and people everywhere!

Came to the Tower of London, another massive place! We opted not to go inside, Cat is really creeped out by the stories we have heard about it, but explored the outside quite a while and read everything we found about the gates, the building of it, and even an escape from there. Would have been neat to see the Crown Jewels, but you couldn't just do that so oh well!

Right next to the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge, built in the 1890s. This is one HUGE and BEAUTIFUL bridge! Planned on taking a tour, but found out that we would need to climb over 200 steps, and that isn't possible right now, so we walked across the Thames once more and snapped pics of every part of that beautiful thing from every angle I could find! Absolutely breathtaking and another highlight! (I am a bridge nut for sure!)

Once on the other side of the Thames again we decided to go to Greenwich. Hopped on a bus back across the Thames (4th time!) and went to the light rail station as we had read to do only to find that no one was there to help and we couldn't find the the train we needed.....that and being about walked out in flat sandals (that I will not be wearing for any more walking days) made us decide to hop on a bus and ride London instead. We (after getting on 3 buses and the drivers tell us to get on the next bus each time) finally found a bus going to Paddington Station. The trip would take 45 minutes, a lot longer than the tube but the tubes were having major delays, it was rush hour, and my feet hurt! We crawled along and ended up going by all sorts of things we had seen---Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, St. Paul's and more--and snapped more pics! Cat started snapping pics of things we have in the US too---McDonald's, Starbucks (wish we had counted those!), Pizza Hut. etc and it got rather funny! An hour and a half later (not 45 minutes!) on a hot un-air-conditioned double-decker bus we were in a place we recognized near Paddington and we jumped off.

Stopped by Bizarro on the way home for another wonderful dinner, and crawled back to the hotel, sunburned and sore-footed! We hoped to walk in Hyde Park tonight but were just too tired. We read up on some of the things we hope to do tomorrow and Thursday (can't believe we only have 3 more days in London).

One trauma today---I dropped my tube/bus pass on when we were way far from the hotel. Of course I panicked but my oh so wise daughter guided me back across the street where we had come from and there it was on the ground! I was feeling a bit lucky and I thank Cat for holding it together in my time of freaking out. Being tired, hot, thirsty and with sore feet isn't a good time to lose anything!

more adventure tomorrow!