London in Not Quite 24 Hours

We weren't sure whether we would be stopping in London when we planned this trip, since I had been there before and Patrick was more interested in other places. Once Scotland and Paris were both on our itinerary, however, it seemed silly to leave it out. The compromise was that we arrived on Monday night at about 6:15 and left the next day at 6 pm.

In London, we did achieve our goal of a whirlwind tour (maybe a bit more whirlwind than we planned at the end)! The first night after we checked in, we decided to challenge the stereotype that it's hard to find good food in the UK with an Indian restaurant, and most definitely succeeded.  Rather than going back to the hotel and to bed, we followed it up with a walk to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament at night. (While they are impressive during the day, I think that Big Ben for sure is far more memorable at night. Although it always makes me think of Peter Pan.) After a much longer walk than planned along the River Thames (my directional sense has not improved since my last time in London and giving Patrick shiny things to take photos of doesn't help his), we finally found our way back to our hotel for the night. The next morning was a quick start with pastries and coffee and what we intended to be a quick, hour or so expedition to the British Museum. We ended up there for closer to 4 hours, so our next stops at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the long walks in between were necessarily quick walk-bys.

While we didn't investigate anything except the British Museum in any depth, we did both enjoy ourselves and got a great overview of the city!