Our next day in London, David was chomping at the bit to go to Oxford. I told him that there was no way were getting on a train and fighting weekend crowds again. I would be up for a boat ride, but we had a hard time finding a boat trip that would go that far up the Thames.
Instead, we decided to go the opposite direction and catch a boat to Greenwich. I'm still not clear on whether Greenwich is just a neighborhood of London or an outer borough or what. Anyway, it's south east of London and you can get there via boat since it's right on the Thames.
On the way to the ferry station, we passed by Buckingham Palace. There was a big crowd gathering just outside. We asked some people what they were waiting for. The first people we asked said that they saw the crowd and stopped but they didn't know either. Someone eventually told us that it was the Queen's 80th birthday.
The gardens outside Buckingham Palace
A View of Buckingham Palace from the Front
The Parade for the Queen's Birthday
We continued to walk through the park and got some interesting shots. From this view, you can see the London Eye and Big Ben poking over the trees in the background.
We got to the ferry station just in time to catch a trip down the Thames. Although he claimed he wasn't a licensed tour guide, there was a crew member that was very entertaining and knowledgeable manning a microphone on the tour down the river.
A View of St Paul's from the River
The next photo is pretty much just for my mom. This photo shows a little canal off the Thames. It's the place in the novel "Oliver" where Bill Sykes dies. The movie filmed the scene in that location as well. It's now built up into condos. How sad.
Where They Hung Bill Sykes
The next two days in London were dedicated to shopping. And also to relaxing a bit. We had toured pretty hard, and we were now starting to settle into vacation mode. The first day of shopping, we focused on Kensington. We wanted to do Harvey Nichols, Harrod's, and try to find an antique map store that David had been to a few years ago. We started our journey with a walk through Hyde Park and Kensinton Gardens.
