My Big OE

I was up early on my first day in London (time keeps shifting around!) so I decided to walk to my first booked activity. I had read about the free Sky Garden and had luckily seen it early enough to book a time slot for late morning. Mr Google told me the walk was about 80 minutes and it went close to Buckingham Palace and then around a waterfront walk by the Thames.

It was a lovely fresh spring day and just perfect for exploring. The palace was very impressive and wasn't crowded that early in the day. I then made my way through the picturesque St James Park where the spring flowers were starting to bloom all around.

Nearby Trafalgar square was chaotic and busy as I think everyone was trying to get to work! I loved seeing all the names of the streets so familiar after playing Monopoly. My walk then veered off to a path along the lovely embankment park by the river. I passed by the Savoy, which had only been my second choice of Hotel!. I passed the "border" to the city of London guarded by some Lion Statues and finally reached the impressive building housing the Sky Garden. I'll post a separate footprint for my time there.

I next headed for the other side of the Thames, braving the underground to save time and my feet, before walking over a foot and rail bridge to where the London Eye sat dominating the skyline. I had fast track tickets to avoid the large queue of tourist waiting in the very warm sun (getting a better summer in London). There will be a separate footprint for this stop too.

After a nice lunch in the park, bought from the huge range of prepared food in a local Tesco's, I headed to Covent Gardens and wandered around exploring the area. By now it was about 6:00pm and I had exceeded 20,000 steps, so I found a bus to my Hotel and called it a day with a takeaway burger and a glass of wine for dinner.Læs mere