London

We woke bright and early so we could spend the day walking around London.  We immediately noticed a really really nasty sewer smell just all over the apartment.  We called the managing company, and they pretty much said they really couldn't do anything at the moment, so we got ready as quickly as we could, and left to catch a train to take us to the train stop near the Tower of London.

Right out of the underground station, we saw remnants of a castle wall, and walked around them to see the rest of the Tower of London.  It was also extrememly expensive to go into, and the kids didn't seem too interested in it anyway, so we walked around it, and then walked over to the River Thames.

View to the right.....

View to the Left!

We were a lot closer to the bridge than this picture shows, and we quickly walked over to get some better pictures.

After a gazillion pictures, we ate lunch from food trucks near the bridge.

We weren't exactly sure what to do next, but the kids saw a statue of Shaun the Sheep, so we ran over and took pictures.  Then we started toward the Tower of London visitors center, so we could try and get a map of the city.  That's where we discovered that London was part of a promotion for Shaun the Sheep.  There were over 30 statues throughout London.  Each of the kids got a Shaun map, and we decided to go searching for them, since most of them seemed to be around something we wanted to see too.

Shaun Xiao - Tower of London

Out of This World -- City of London Information Center

Sheep Shape and Bristol Fashion - Peter's Hill

A Capital View -  Festival Gardens

Chelsea Pen Shaun-er - Diamond Jubilee Gardens

St. Pauls Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral

Baa-Rouque -  St. Pauls Cathedral

Literary Lamb - Temple Bar

These last three Shaun's were all right near each other, and right by St. Paul's Cathedral.  We walked around the Cathedral, but there was a sort of demonstration going on by a rather charismatic mas, so we continued on.  At this point several children were telling us they needed to use the bathroom, so we went in search of one.  We did find a paying rest room (typical in Europe) but about choked at the price of 50 pence a person.  That's just under $5 for all of us to use the bathroom.

Courtyard by St. Pauls with pricey restrooms!

Hamish - Paternoster Square

Then, we crossed the Millenium Bridge.  Here's a shot of it before we actually got on.

It's kind of hard to see the bridge itself with all the buildings behind it.  If you watch Harry Potter 6, it's the same bridge that gets destroyed by the Dementors at the beginning.  

The only picture we got of the bridge while we were on it.  This is acutally us going back toward St. Pauls Cathedral when we were heading home.

View of the Shard, from the Millenium bridge

Ber-Ewe-Nel - Tate Modern

We got to the opposite side of the bridge, and went in search of some other fun sights.

Globe Theater

To Sheep, Perchance to Dream - Globe Theater

Southwark Cathedral

After seeing the globe we walked around a few corners, and down a crowded street on our way to go and see the Shard.  We ran into a little museum called Clink's Prison museum, and decided to go in.  They advertised a little searching game for kids, so we figured it might be kind of fun.

The Clink's Prison museum was actually a prison once, and so the museum had displays about all the different kinds of things that happened during it's time as a prison.  It turns out that while they did actually hide stuffed rats throughout, and had a contest for kids to find and count them, that was really the ONLY thing that catered to kids.  The rest of the museum was about torture devices, and rather gory.  We only took a couple pictures, and two of the four kids didn't care for it.  The other two thought it was awesome.  At the end, we got free pictures taken in a prison cell.  Davin refused to go in.  

Rainbow - Shard 

After visiting the Shard, we were getting tired, and hungry, and we had to walk back to the train to get back to our part of London.  We made it back just as it was hitting dusk, stopped at a Burger King and relaxed back at the apartment with our dinner.  The sewer smell was still there, but we discovered that if we put all the plugs into the drains in the bathroom and kitchen, the smell almost immediately went away.  The smell, and the teeny tiny size of the tub bummed me out because it just so happened to also be my birthday, and I wanted to take a nice long, hot bath.... that didn't happen!