Fun in London.

Dylan got up one morning and asked about “…our Queen Elizabet who lives in a castle in old London Town…”, so the opportunity arose to take our wide eyed Dylan on a trip to see the sights of London, which turned into how many forms of transport can we get to ride in, in a day. It was a memorable day trip in the school holidays particularly light relief following the emotions of learning Milo’s exam results.

Transport is a Little boys delight!

Underground train

Train

Bus

Boat

Excitement of the journey to London was replaced by the delight of climbing on to the top deck of a bus. A beautiful warm breezy day and seating at the back of the bus Dylan was like a happy puppy dog with his tongue hanging out smiling with pleasure. The bus commentator was full of ‘tit-bits’ of information, history and entertaining, respectful to his listeners and as English day trippers we were in the minority. We spent two hours on the bus, all the way around our chosen ’yellow’ route observing all the key land marks of London from a number of different angles. Dylan either knew the sights or had heard of a few so was pleased to be able to recognise them for himself. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, River Thames and London Eye were key to his dialogue of recognition. The one place he also knew and wanted to see was Buckingham Palace, we were able to walk back to the palace at the end of our bus execution.

On route to the palace we stopped for lunch in what turned out to be an exclusive burger bar with some quite intriguing cocktails. Milo picked himself a mock-tail which contained most of his weeks  ‘5-a-day’ consumption, very scrumptious though.

Refreshed and energized we stepped forward albeit getting way laid by both tacky then regal gift shops. In the first shop Dylan eye-balled himself a new policeman’s helmet and a red/clear double-decker bus rucksack for flat-Ted to go in so he could see everything on the trip too. The next shop we just had to go into was the Buckingham Palace gift shop, a unique shop, we settled on some fruit cake with the royal seal of approval for our men folk back home. The only problem with the two cakes were so heavy, we tasked ourselves to either hold Dylan’s hand or carry the bag of cake! Turned the corner and stood in front of the Queens home, and our young policeman was very delighted too as he was able to see the guardsmen taking in the size of the palace. We had to explain the Queen wasn’t had home today so we couldn’t go inside to say hello and have a cup of tea, not today anyway!

Boys at Buckingham Palace

The last leg of our trip was to walk to the river and go on a sight-seeing boat back up the river getting off at Tower Bridge. The boat trip was part of the sight-seeing bus package so made the day reasonable value for money and perfect for boys looking for a trip out doing something a bit different with no hassle in the day at all. We consumed the obligatory holiday maker’s very creamy ice cream at the Tower of London as we strode to the underground then train station to take the trip home.

Really great day out and pleased to have had the opportunity to see through the eyes of Dylan, who loved it. Again my technical adviser has created a wonderful video which gives a really great flavor of the day, its only just under two mins so do watch it.
Thanks Val she organised us well, great friend X.