A little while ago, DH and I took our dream vacation to England. We spent most of our time in London, though we did venture outside for a few jaunts.
We stayed at the Tower Hotel, which was right next to the Tower of London and the Tower bridge. The first thing we went to see was the Tower.
We had passes for one of the hop-on/hop-off busses that do routes around London, and toured all over the city on them. We saw a lot of the sights that way!
We got to two of the smaller museums in London – one on Sherlock Holmes, and one of Jack the Ripper. The Sherlock Holmes one was very cute and well done for a smaller place. They had a lot of items that would have been in Victorian homes, and also a lot of items that were mentioned in the books. There were tour guides in the different rooms, talking about different aspects of Victorian life and about the Sherlock Holmes stories. The Jack the Ripper museum was a plucky, smaller place that took a really interesting direction. They focused more on the victims and barely mentioned the suspected murderers. There was a lot of information about each of the murdered women and about their life circumstances. I really liked their approach.
We had one whirlwind bus trip that took us to Stonehenge, Bath, and Windsor. For anyone considering a similar trip, I would advise against trying to do this many things in one day. It was a 12 hour day, of which 6 of those hours were driving. We didn’t really have enough time in any of the destinations.
Stonehenge! What can you say – it was awesome.
Also, right next to Stonehenge is a field full of sheep! I literally turned around from looking at Stonehenge, and this was right there.
In Bath we got to see the Roman Baths – which is mostly a Victorian reconstruction, though there are some Roman ruins preserved there as well.
We did get to see a little of the town itself, though I would have loved to spend more time there. We got to the Jane Austen center, but did not have time to take the tour, unfortunately.
Then on to Windsor! It is a very impressive castle and grounds, and has many, many gift shops, which I guess I didn’t really expect. My favorite part of Windsor was the amazing chapel, which you could not take pictures in.
The day that Liz (of Highland Heffalump) and I met up, my DH took a day excursion to the town of Bovington to go to a world famous tank museum. This is something he has wanted to do for years, so I am glad he got to do it. And equally glad I didn’t have to go along!
We went to the Royal Observatory and toured Flamsteed House, stood on the Prime Meridian, and saw the Maritime museum. And on our last day in England, we did a Terrible Thames river cruise.
Other than the big things, it was so interesting to be in London and try different things. I rode the Underground (with Liz’s kind guidance). We took a ferry up the Thames to Greenwich. We ate in pubs and tried sticky toffee pudding (delicious). We got coffee from Costa Coffee. We watched British TV in the evenings. We got supplies in Sainsbury’s and Tesco. I have read a lot of books set in England and London, and it was so cool to finally see all of these place.
One little thrill I had was when we were walking around looking for something, and I stumbled on the very place where the first scene in the first Rivers of London novel takes place! I wasn’t even looking for it, and hadn’t assumed it was a specific place – but there it was.
I think one of my favorite things was the view from our room. Could not get enough of it!
Next post I will get back to talking about knitting, and also have a lot of house progress to report. And I am working on catching up on reading everyone’s blog!
What was your favorite vacation? Why was it your favorite?
Quite A Yarn 
What a fabulous trip. I’ve been lucky to do a lot of travelling but Hawaii (esp Maui) 🥇, Pacific Northwest USA (esp Crater Lake, Oregon)🥈 and Sri Lanka 3rd. Not forgetting how much I love Italy though….goodness it’s tough picking favourite holidays 😂
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You have done a lot of traveling to some wonderful places! I’d have trouble picking a favorite too 🙂
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Sounds like a great vacation!
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It was!
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Great set of photos and commentary on your adventures in Great Britain. It reminded me of the trip I took with my sister, husband and mother, when she turned 80. She wanted to see all of the same sites that you took in, starting with Windsor. I’ll never forget that trip.
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It is an amazing place to visit! Sounds like you had a wonderful trip 🙂
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It had a lot of great moments.
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Oh my goodness I am so envious! I so want to see Stonehenge someday. I enjoyed your photos and stories – what a trip! So cool you got to ride the Underground – it is like you had an authentic experience!
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You will get there! You guys travel a lot, so I bet you will be there sooner rather than later 🙂 It was really wonderful! Stonehenge was amazing.
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What a great trip; I love London. So much history there.
I don’t know that I have a favorite vacation, but I have favorite parts of many vacations. I do love Hawaii, especially the Big Island. I loved seeing glaciers calving in Glacier Bay National Park last month. The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Tower of London in London. Puffins on the Isle of Staffa in Scotland. There’s always something wonderful everywhere!
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You have gotten to a lot of cool places!
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Looks like a wonderful trip! The Terrible Thames tour sounds so fun.
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It was very fun!
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That sounds like an amazing vacation! I will get to London one of these days, and thank you for the tip to not try to cram so many things into one 12-hour day.
If I had to pick right this moment, I’d say the Rhine River Cruise Mr. Wyrm and I took a year ago is my favorite vacation. (Went from Switzerland to Amsterdam, with stops along both the French and German sides of the Rhine river.) We got to see so many places! And the food was amazing.
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That sounds wonderful! I have wondered about those European river cruises – it seems like a great way to see a lot with less hassle than train travel or similar.
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I would highly recommend them as long as you’re okay with sticking to someone else’s timeline. We wanted a general overview of the area, and the one thing I particularly wanted to do was included, so it was perfect for us. However, most of the boat’s travel was done at night, so if you want to see a city’s nightlife this might not be the way to go. There was certainly less hassle than staying in a different hotel for every city!
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That really does sound perfect for us as well – we aren’t really nightlife people. And yes to not having to move to different hotels!
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Agreed, we’re not really nightlife people either. The only thing I’d say that I missed from that river cruise experience was the ability to dine on local food for dinner. (Lunches we were usually in the cities and could eat whatever we wanted, but for dinner we were back onboard and ate whatever the boat galley was serving. Good food, but not exactly local cuisine.)
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