A Monumental Day in London (July 12)

Saturday morning dawned most drearily, as English mornings have a tendency to do. The group was going to London, catching the 9:50 train out. Several of us weren't really interested in doing what the group had planned, like seeing a play, and wanted to rather do all the proper touristy things. We set out on an earlier train, the 9:30, cackling that we would get there first and see much cooler things. That plan backfired when we realized that the 9:50 train only makes two stops while 9:30 stops at pretty much every station along the route. An epic fail on our part: we learned to read the boards much more carefully after that. We passed the oddest looking place, like a nuclear power plant or something.


We got to London and were planning to take the Tube line that would take us to pretty much all the monuments' locations. Alas, that and the second best line were closed for the weekend. We were having some pretty crummy luck. But we finally figured it out, or rather, Alisha did. Alisha had studied everything in great depth and owned the most handy foldable map of London in existence.

Our first stop was London bridge. It was not falling down and was, in fact, a pretty mundane, ordinary bridge.
Me on London Bridge. Look how cheery the weather is.
The Tower Bridge was impressive.
London Bridge as seen from the Thames path. If you look very hard on the far right side, you can see "London Bridge" carved into the support.
From London bridge, we walked along the Thames to the Tower of London. It was a lot more sprawling than I had anticipated...

...to be continued.