{"id":4020,"date":"2013-08-08T23:28:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T04:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=4020"},"modified":"2013-09-05T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T02:37:36","slug":"england-day-3-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=4020","title":{"rendered":"England: Day 3, London"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4021\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4021\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870-350x233.jpg\" alt=\"The Tower of London\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4021\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/img_20130808_065870.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4021\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Tower of London<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On our third and final day in London we got out a bit earlier. We had breakfast at a bakery around the corner from our hotel and then caught a bus to near Harrods department store. We spent about an hour wandering around the store.<\/p>\n<p>From there we took a bus to Victoria Station and then walked past Westminster Cathedral to Westminster Abbey. The line to get in the Abbey was fairly long (did I mention that August isn&#8217;t the best time to visit London?) but there was nothing for it but to join the queue and wait.<\/p>\n<p>It was pretty crowded inside, as well. No photography is allowed in the abbey, which is probably just as well, when you consider how slowly people were moving <em>without<\/em> taking pictures. Most of our group listened to the audio guides but Dorothy and I satisfied ourselves with reading the monuments themselves. While I&#8217;m certainly glad we went, I&#8217;m not as thrilled with Westminster Abbey as I am with some other churches I&#8217;ve visited. It&#8217;s more a shrine to fallen men than a place to worship the God whom they ostensibly served.<\/p>\n<p>After lunch in the new Cellarium cafe, which opened last year, we walked across Westminster Bridge and caught a bus to near Tower Bridge. We enjoyed the view of the bridge and the Tower of London across the river from Potter&#8217;s Fields Park. We walked across the bridge and then around the Tower, which was closed by this time.<\/p>\n<p>We took a bus back to the west, passing St. Paul&#8217;s Cathedral, which we didn&#8217;t have time to see on this trip. I&#8217;ve been in but I&#8217;d love to go there again. I&#8217;m a fan of big domes. We had dinner near Covent Garden and the returned to our hotel, again via Trafalgar Square. Buying Oyster cards before leaving home turned out to be a good idea. We certainly got our money&#8217;s worth out of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On our third and final day in London we got out a bit earlier. We had breakfast at a bakery around the corner from our hotel and then caught a bus to near Harrods department store. We spent about an hour wandering around the store. From there we took a bus to Victoria Station and &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=4020\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4039,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions\/4039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}