We woke up a little bit later that day, thoroughly re-energised for another day of sightseeing in London. Also, we woke up to news of England dethroning champions NZ in rugby – every newspaper ran stories/pictures of the win: it was hard not to miss. And it may have been the win, but London turned on its best weather for us – it was nice and sunny!
After breakfast (here’s a tip, when you’re looking for holiday accommodation – book ones that offer breakfast, it’s a little extra but saves you so much time) we headed of to Greenwich town for some sightseeing and to stock up on snacks for the road trip next day. Greenwich Town is beautiful and like the rest of the country, so rich in history. In fact Greenwich is where time starts hence the reference to Greenwich Mean Time or GMT. We did not get to visit the Royal Observatory, which holds the clock that shows the GMT. It is called Shepherd’s Gate Clock, and is the same all year round. Summer time (daylight savings) changes do not affect this clock.
From Greenwich we took a bus to Lewisham to find a Tesco shop; and it was there we came across TKMaxx, the equivalent of Target or Costco elsewhere in the world. And it was the reason we were ‘slightly’ delayed to meet our friend Geua. We caught the train from Lewisham (not the Tube, this one was different) to Tower Bridge, to meet up with Geua. We ended up being on opposite sides of the bridge and caught up in the middle.
It was a fun day with Geua. After taking a ‘few’ photos at the Tower Bridge, we went on to find Buckingham Palace and then to St Paul’s cathedral. We walked, bus-ed 🙂, train-ed 🙂, etc, it everywhere. I didn’t realise we covered so much ground until looking at this map from my google history! Wow!
At the end of the day, we had dinner with Geua, caught up with more stories/laughter and then accompanied her back to Grosvenor Gardens coach stop for her trip back to Oxford. After seeing Geua off, we opted to take the bus back to Waterloo station: driving through the streets of London, being amazed at everything and anything even though it was a Sunday night. From Waterloo, we caught the train back to Greenwich for the last time to pack and rest up for the tour.
We realised that 2 days was not enough and made a promise to come back one fine day, to see more of London and tour the rest of UK. Iamo and I are grateful for Annabel and Geua, who travelled from their respective places (Bath and Oxford) to spend time with us, and will cherish these memories forever ❤
Idau Hahine 