London
1. Tower of London
Jordon is more the history buff than I am but this is one thing you can't miss. Firstly, it's a castle in the middle of the city, don't see that every day and secondly, so many things happened here. You can see the Bloody Tower, the court yard where Anne Boleyn lost her head, some of the old torture devices...... okay so it has quite the gory history. We even saw a little boy running around yelling "Off with yer head!" You can join a tour every half an hour where they will share some of the immense history. If you plan ahead, you can find 2 for 1 tickets online making it only £24 for two people.
2. St Paul's Cathedral
A church is a church is a church...true most of the time, unless you are talking about this incredible building. St Paul's Cathedral has been home to many historic events as well: Nelson's funeral (his body is in the crypts of the Cathedral, which you can visit), Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding and Churchill's funeral. There is a Whispering Gallery that you can climb to and if you sit across the dome from someone and say something into the wall, they can hear it from the other side. There are two more galleries that take you outside. The picture right below shows the view from the highest one. An audio guide is also included in your admission cost. Again, if you plan ahead you can get discount tickets online. It ended up costing us £34. If you don't care about seeing the galleries or the crypts, you can go for service on Sunday or their evening song at 5:30 pm every night for free.
3. A Free Museum
There's that word again that I liked so much when we were traveling before. London offers a lot of free museums. There's the Natural History museum, The British Museum and The Victoria and Albert museum, just to name a few. The Natural History museum was packed as it is half term and it is probably the most kid friendly. We chose to go to the Victoria and Albert museum which had some pretty neat things, but I think we both agreed we would have rather gone to the British Museum to see things like the Rosetta Stone and mummies. That's next time for us.
4. Take a Stroll in Hyde Park
Hyde Park is beautiful in the fall. The picture above with the yellow leaves was taken there. We went to see the Peter Pan statue and Kensington Palace, where William and Kate reside (the rare time they are in the city).
5. A Free Walking Tour(s)
That's correct, MULTIPLE free walking tours. We did one of London (technically the City of Westminster, there are cities within the city, it's all confusing) where we saw Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and the alley that inspired the set of Knockturn Alley from Harry Potter. We then did a Jack the Ripper walking tour in the evening where they took you to Whitechapel where all the crimes where committed. There is a pub still standing there, The Ten Bells, that was around during 1888. Take advantage of these. There are multiple companies and they are easy to find online.
Cambridge
On our way back home, we decided to make a stop in Cambridge, which I think we're glad we did but it is a total let down. You hear all these nice things about the University, and don't get me wrong, it's amazing, but they want to charge you anywhere from £3 - £8 to enter each COURTYARD. Not the building itself, just to the grass through the gates. It's ridiculous. We snuck through some door to snap a quick photo of Trinity College which is below but I didn't think it was worth £8. It seemed a bit pretentious to charge us simple peasants to walk the grounds of a university we could never get into. If you do decide to go there, let me know if it was worth it.
It was a whirlwind of a weekend and now I am working at catching up on Netflix, learning how to make a proper Sunday lunch and relaxing for the rest of the break.
- Vanessa xo
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