School just let out. So you know that means catching a family trip or two before prices rise for the summer. Mid-May? Prices are great but school is not yet out for us. End of May? Prices are ok. It’s the best we can do until the Fall shoulder season. By mid-June, prepare to pay an arm and a leg. Needless to say, the end of May was it for us.
We started our trip by catching a 9:30am United flight to Newark Airport from Atlanta airport. This airport leaves much to be desired, since there are no Priority pass lounges left. There are United lounges and other Star Alliance lounges available but only if you are flying business class on their specific airline. This was a family trip, so no business class flight for me this time. We had to sit in the crowded gate area to wait for our flight.
After a 4-hour layover, we caught our red-eye flight to Lisbon, Portugal on TAP Portugal. We landed at 5:30 am the following day. After another 3-hour layover, we caught our connecting flight to London Heathrow. It was 10 am the following day, but we finally made it to the UK. Here are a couple of my favorite pics from our trip.
Around London
We spent a couple of days looking at the sights in central London. We took a number of trains to get to many of the major attractions. We took the hop on-hop off bus when it was convenient. We even … Here are a few of my favorite pics from our sightseeing.
We used our London Pass to visit a number of attractions, two of which are Tower of London and the Tower Bridge Experience. The main draw of the Tower of London is the crown jewels. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed of the jewels. But the architecture of the castle is breathtaking in and of itself. At the Tower Bridge Experience, we took an elevator to the top of the bridge and just watched life go by below us. Buses, cars, and boats - we saw them all through a glass floor. What an interesting experience.
Westminster Abbey is the final resting place for dozens of British kings, queens, and nobles. It’s also a working church. It’s also architecturally stunning. Hundreds of years of history are captured among its walls. British history comes off the page when you see the actual people who you read about in World History textbooks. I’m glad my kids could experience this for themselves.
We also used our pass to go the Naval Observatory and the Cutty Sark ship in the Greenwich Harbor. The Prime Meridien goes through the back of the observatory and I just wanted to stand in the eastern and western hemisphere at the same time. The Cutty Sark transported goods between London, China, and Australia 150 years ago. Once we left, we used the London Pass to catch a cruise on the River Cruise from Greenwich (where the observatory is) back to Central London. This culminates my Tower Bridge trifecta. I saw the bridge from above, I walked on it, and I saw it from below. Cool!
When we got off the cruise, we took the Tube a couple of stops to Piccadilly Circus and just people watched. It was the Queen’s diamond jubilee so there was a lot of activity hanging around. We saw many union jack flags and I even saw a protest of one. This was definitely a cool experience.
We took a day trip to Oxford from Paddington Station. There is an awesome view on top of one of church across from the Rotunda. There is a library that dates from the 1300s but we could go in there because the students were studying for their finals at the time. We did, however, go into the School of Divinity. It is here where portions of Harry Potter was filmed. The room that we were in was over 600 years ago. (You can’t make this stuff up!). Sariah really enjoyed it I must say.
All good things must come to an end. We headed to Madrid for a night before catching our flight back home. We didn’t stay there long but we did catch a nice meal downtown. In the morning, we headed to the airport where we caught our Air Europa flight to JFK before later catching our Delta flight back to Atlanta. Hard to believe that it was only a week but our entire trip was just 7 days. Till next time…
