Guards, Bridges, & Markets. Mamma Mia!

It was once again a beautiful sunny day and the changing of the guard was a pretty lavish spectacle! We got there 15 minutes early but it was absolutely packed. You would have thought Queen Lizzy was addressing the nation! Jo managed to push her way somewhat to the front, playing the short person card, however, the view was still pretty rubbish. We found it best just to watch one of the thousands of phone screens being held up in the air trying to get the shot.
It was pretty amazing though! To think that they close roads and put on this lavish show every few days is crazy! The marching band had to be the highlight. Being able to play so well while staying in formation was incredible.

From there we beelined for London Bridge and more importantly, Borough Markets. Borough markets are a food lovers dream! Hundreds of food stalls selling delicious cheeses, meats, chocolates, fresh produce, hot food and of course mulled wine, sangria and warmed spiced cider.

We wandered the many stores struggling to decide on something to eat for lunch before settling on pulled pork rolls, fried chicken burgers, falafel wraps, sangria & hot spiced cider. Oh and of course jam & chocolate filled donuts to cap it off! We’re going to be twice the size when we come back!
We sat in the shadow of a very old and grand church to feast on our purchases before going our seperate ways. James & Jess were heading to St Paul’s cathedral, we were aiming for The Tower of London. We didn’t quite make it though as our walk there took us through awesome Christmas markets and across London Tower. With our daylight running out we decided to leave The Tower of London to tomorrow. Instead we opted for the Tower Bridge walk.

A lift took us more than 40 meters up one of the towers where we could walk across the the glass bottomed walkways to the other side. It was somewhat dizzying stepping out onto the glass and looking down, but extremely cool. The views over London and the Thames were fantastic, and the history of the Tower Bridge was really fascinating. It was really an artistic and engineering wonder for London. We toured the engine room which house the huge old steam engines which drove the bascules, splitting the bridge in two to allow for ships to pass through. Back when it was built in 1894 it was raised 10,000 times a year and required a team of 12 guys to operate it. Today its all run by electricity and only opened maybe 1000 times a year at the push of a button. How times have changed. We spent some time soaking in the history before heading back to the apartment in the dark.

From there the plans were to go and see the musical School of Rock. James jumped on board with Jo & I and we left Jess and Hudsy to hopefully a quiet night. Even after talking to the booking people, it wasn’t long before we discovered I had mad a big mistake. Turns out the musical wasn’t even playing tonight! Spewing!
Lucky we hadn’t travelled too far and London has about 400,000 theatres scattered across the city. No, I exaggerate, but we were lucky in that Mamma Mia was playing jsut a street away and we had time to make it! So we went from School of Rock to Mamma Mia… not a bad compromise… in fact I think Mamamia probably turned out to be the better option anyway. By the end of it they had us on our feet singing along to Dancing Queen and all those ABBA classics. We felt horrible for poor Jess when we broke the news to her we were heading to Mamma Mia instead! We resolved to telling her it was terrible if she asked.

All in all it was yet another great day in this incredible city!

Asher ☺️Read more