Before retiring the previous night we had agreed with my dad that would make him up around 9:00am. The kids were hungry and woke up reasonably well on time and my dad at least answered the door when I knocked.

Hotel Breakfast

Breakfast was not included with the stay and my Platinum status with IHG does not have that as a perk. The Hotel restaurant did offer a buffet breakfast for 12 pounds per person so we decided to give it a try.

While it was a bit crowded, we found seats and checked out the selection. There was a decent selection of fresh fruit, pastries, cereals and some hot items. There wasn’t a station to get toast which was disappointing, but we all found a decent amount to eat to start off our day.

Splitting Up

We decided to split up for the day. The kids wanted to spend more time in the park and my dad and I wanted to go see some of the sights. We ended up walking down past Buckingham Palace, through the park towards Downing Street and then to Big Ben and the Parliament building. My dad was in his element as he recognized the building and their historical importance.

He then spied Westminster Abby and we decided to go inside for the tour.

Three Hours of Westminster Abby

The line to buy the tickets was pretty short. With the tickets we got admission as well as an audio tour that would talk about the different areas. Before entering the building we had to go through metal detectors and have any bags scanned. We then picked up our audio dour device and headphones.

Overall, the audio tour was excellent. There is so much history in the building where famous people are buried (Issac Newton, Stephen Hawkins) or at least have markers in the floor.

The building symbolizes the closeness of the church and the monarchy. We got to walk through the area where Queen Elizabeth was coronated and where countless globally important events have happened over the last 1000 years. The architecture is beautiful and everywhere you looked there were sculptures and artifacts to study.

Unfortunately my dad wanted to study… EVERYTHING. I’ve gotten used to the kids who have a tendency to breeze through museums a bit quickly at times. My dad is the polar opposite. The crowds were thick but that wasn’t what was slowing us down. We spend nearly 3 hours going through the building and grounds before we finally started getting hungry.

Finding Lunch and the Afternoon

While I give my dad a hard time for wanting to see every little thing, it was still a great tour and I hadn’t been there before. I learned a lot! Once we exited we started walking around to find a place to eat. We ended up at Pizza Express. It was is sit down chain restaurant that was actually pretty good. We had a relaxing lunch splitting a pizza. Since it was early afternoon on a Saturday, it wasn’t busy which made it more relaxing.

After eating we decided to try to go to the Churchill War Rooms Museum where he spent much of his time leading the country during World War II. Thanks to Google Maps we were able to figure out it was only a 10 minute walk away.

When we got there, unfortunately there was a very long line. We waited for about 15 minutes before realizing that it was going to be a LOOONG time before we got in, if at all. The staff was telling us that they would stop letting people in soon due to the closing time and that it wasn’t likely we would be able to get in that day. With that we decided to head back to the hotel.

Rather than taking the tube, we decided to walk back through St. James Park and Green Park. It was a beautiful weekend day and people were taking advantage of the pleasant spring weather. It certainly wasn’t the stereotypical drab and dreary London weather we were expected.

Back at the hotel we realized the family was still out and about in the park. I texted their phone to find out where they were and what they wanted to do for dinner. They were at a park at Lancaster Gate which is a part of Hyde Park and connected to Kensington Gardens. I found directions using Google Maps and my dad and I headed out for the tube to meet up with them. We used our Oyster cards for the first time. My dad mostly figured out hot to tap the card on the designated place to let him through he gates.

River Ferry

I had read that the river ferry, that was part of the public transportation system, had great views of the city and was a cheap alternative to a private river cruise. We figured we could go find someplace to eat in Canary Wharf which was the last top on the ferry, and find our way back to the hotel on the subway.

Once we met up with my wife in Lancaster Gate, we played soccer and frisbee with the kids for a few minutes before heading out to catch the river ferry. We used Google Maps to figure out how to get to the ferry stop near the Parliament building and Big Ben where my dad and I had been earlier that day. We took the tube and there was no issue bringing the kids through with us for free.

The tube is great for getting to nearly any place in London. It’s clean, efficient and relatively easy to get around. The station near our hotel was also well situated to minimize transfers as well. From the park we were soon exiting the subway station looking up at Big Ben on the banks of the Thames. Unfortunately Big Ben was undergoing restoration so it was surrounded by scaffolding and it wasn’t much to look at.

We found our way towards the river and found the ticket office so we could figure out the ferry schedule and how to get tickets. We found that we could use credit on our Oyster cards, though the kids weren’t free like they were on the bus and subway. It was only a few pounds so we bought tickets to get to Canary Wharf the other end of the line which was in the Docklands section of London which is the financial district.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, the next ferry arrived and we boarded. We were towards the beginning of the line so we had our choice of seats and settled on some in the front.

The ferry made several stops as we passed iconic landmarks like the Parliament building, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and the London Eye. It was great and I can’t imagine it would have been any better on a private tour boat. It took about half an hour to get the final stop in Canary Wharf where we got off.

Dinner in Canary Wharf

It was a Saturday evening and the Canary Wharf areas is the financial district of the city. To say it was deserted is somewhat of an understatement. There were very few people walking around and it didn’t seem to be too lively of an area.

We walked around for awhile and found a mall that had several restaurants open. We found a bar/burger place called Byron Hamburgers which is apparently a chain. It was a restaurant/bar that seemed like it would be someplace that would be overly packed on a weekday at lunch but was pretty empty on this Saturday evening. The food was excellent, though.

After a filling dinner we found our way to the nearest tube station that would bring us back to the hotel. Once there we called it a night and settled on an earlier wake up time as we would be catching a train to Cambridge for the day.