London - England
03/07/05
We arrived in London at 1 PM and at 2:30 we were already visiting the city. After the 90 degrees of Cairo, London seemed really cold to us. It was such a good feeling to walk in the streets without being stared at or hassled. Our first stop was in the Dali Animation Museum next to the big wheel, The British Airways London Eye.
After leaving Dali's melted clocks behind ...
... we went around to visit the classical tourist sites in London: Big Ben and the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. '
The abbey has been built in 960, then changed in 1065 and then rebuilt in the thirteen century in the Gothic style we see today. It has been the setting for Coronations since that of William the Conqueror in 1066. We stopped at the Buckingham Palace to watch the guards doing its weird synchronized exercises. We then wandered around the Picadilly Circus and from there to Chinatown, which by the way, compared to New York, is much cleaner and nicer. There, there are plenty of cute and even chic restaurants, but the prices are also much higher. In order not to spend too much money in such an outrageously expensive city, we decided to buy cheap food in a Chinese shop for dinner and went back to the hostel.
03/08/05
The next day, we woke up early since we only had two days and a half in London. We walked from the hostel to the British Museum, which is quite a long walk, but allowed us to see lots of nice neighborhoods and all kinds of interesting buildings. The Covent Garden is one of the place where we stop to look at the craft work. That place use to be a fruit and vegetable market and turn into a market where you can buy very nice souvenirs of England. Then we headed to the Museum which was a delight for us!!
We spent almost the whole day there. There is a huge Egyptian section classified chronologically and with a great amount of information. Many of statues and columns came from the temple in Luxor, the same site where we have been just two days before. At that point it was easy for us to imagine them in their context . The Ancient Time section from the museum houses not only Egyptian stuff but also a Greek, a Roman and a Persian collection and explains how they are interrelated which again was very helpful for us in order to understand certain things told in Egypt. To complete the review of Egyptian history, we watched a short documentary about mummification. By studying the coffin of one of the mummies in the museum, and x-raying it in order to not destroy it, the historians were able to hypothetically tell how that man lived 3500 years ago. A priest that died in its early 30s. The British Museum has been free of charge since its birth and it is a must see in London. After 6 hours spent in there we finally decided to walk around the city. We went to St-Paul's Cathedral ...
... crossing some nice little streets, before going back to the hostel walking along the Thames.
03/09/05
We walked to the Tower bridge,which is probably with Big Ben London's most famous landmark.
We crossed it to go to the Tower of London where you can see a very nice documentary about it, and for free. We then crossed a big part of the city to visit Soho, where we found a store that claims to be the biggest maps and traveller's bookstore in the world. We could not resist and of course we entered. We spent more than an hour there collecting more information about some of our destinations. Then we went to Oxford street, excellent for shopping, and then to Regent Street, where we stopped at the Apple store to send some e-mails out to friends and family. We ended our day in St-James' Park where we rested close to a pound full of ducks.
We arrived in London at 1 PM and at 2:30 we were already visiting the city. After the 90 degrees of Cairo, London seemed really cold to us. It was such a good feeling to walk in the streets without being stared at or hassled. Our first stop was in the Dali Animation Museum next to the big wheel, The British Airways London Eye.
After leaving Dali's melted clocks behind ...
... we went around to visit the classical tourist sites in London: Big Ben and the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. '
The abbey has been built in 960, then changed in 1065 and then rebuilt in the thirteen century in the Gothic style we see today. It has been the setting for Coronations since that of William the Conqueror in 1066. We stopped at the Buckingham Palace to watch the guards doing its weird synchronized exercises. We then wandered around the Picadilly Circus and from there to Chinatown, which by the way, compared to New York, is much cleaner and nicer. There, there are plenty of cute and even chic restaurants, but the prices are also much higher. In order not to spend too much money in such an outrageously expensive city, we decided to buy cheap food in a Chinese shop for dinner and went back to the hostel.
03/08/05
The next day, we woke up early since we only had two days and a half in London. We walked from the hostel to the British Museum, which is quite a long walk, but allowed us to see lots of nice neighborhoods and all kinds of interesting buildings. The Covent Garden is one of the place where we stop to look at the craft work. That place use to be a fruit and vegetable market and turn into a market where you can buy very nice souvenirs of England. Then we headed to the Museum which was a delight for us!!
We spent almost the whole day there. There is a huge Egyptian section classified chronologically and with a great amount of information. Many of statues and columns came from the temple in Luxor, the same site where we have been just two days before. At that point it was easy for us to imagine them in their context . The Ancient Time section from the museum houses not only Egyptian stuff but also a Greek, a Roman and a Persian collection and explains how they are interrelated which again was very helpful for us in order to understand certain things told in Egypt. To complete the review of Egyptian history, we watched a short documentary about mummification. By studying the coffin of one of the mummies in the museum, and x-raying it in order to not destroy it, the historians were able to hypothetically tell how that man lived 3500 years ago. A priest that died in its early 30s. The British Museum has been free of charge since its birth and it is a must see in London. After 6 hours spent in there we finally decided to walk around the city. We went to St-Paul's Cathedral ...
... crossing some nice little streets, before going back to the hostel walking along the Thames.
03/09/05
We walked to the Tower bridge,which is probably with Big Ben London's most famous landmark.
We crossed it to go to the Tower of London where you can see a very nice documentary about it, and for free. We then crossed a big part of the city to visit Soho, where we found a store that claims to be the biggest maps and traveller's bookstore in the world. We could not resist and of course we entered. We spent more than an hour there collecting more information about some of our destinations. Then we went to Oxford street, excellent for shopping, and then to Regent Street, where we stopped at the Apple store to send some e-mails out to friends and family. We ended our day in St-James' Park where we rested close to a pound full of ducks.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 11:06 PM
1 Comments:
Hi, just read your blog on your trip to Delhi. i have been there for an year and a half, but havent heard of the first temple, you visited,, how so many beautiful places go unnoticed. I have your blog bookmarked.. so I'll keep viisiting it.. I am sure it'll be fun reading of all the places you are going to tour.
---Prasanna.
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