Onion River Exploration Project: Hop on Hop off

On the Double Decker.

Day 11 (8/23/12)

We had determined that at least part of this trip was going to be self directed. We have done a couple of group trips at this point so we wanted to have a go at doing it on our own. Since we were in an English speaking country we thought it would be a good place to start. What better way to get around London than a double-decker bus. We had really enjoyed our experience in Copenhagen using the hop on hop off bus service so we decided to try it again. We had come to count on one of the concierge’s at the hotel for advice and took his counsel on which company to use. Our first transfer point was at the Ritz hotel where we transferred from the Blue line to the Red. Our first Goal for the Day was to go to the London Underground Museum at Covent Garden Piazza and shop for some souvenirs. We had been told that was the only place you could get the coveted “Mind the Gap” T-shirt. We ended up getting most of our souvenirs there. Covent Garden turned out to be a entertaining place to explore with street performers, open air markets and food purveyors of all types. Next it was off to the Tate Modern Art Museum. On the walk to the Tate we went past Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. When we got to the Tate we noticed that there was a Edvard Munch exhibit but, although Munch is one of our favorite artists, we just didn’t have that kind of time and didn’t want to spend the money if we had to run through it. It was a rather quick tour of the Tate because we had one more stop we wanted to make and that was Buckingham palace without all the people. We had been able to see very little when we were there during the changing of the guard. It was much more enjoyable this time. We had been told that the buses ran until 7:00 but when we got to our stop we were told that we had probably missed our connection back to the hotel. We asked our driver to drop us at the corner of Hyde Park and we walked back to our Hotel. It went past the commercial district with Harrods so it was actually quite entertaining. After cleaning up a little we headed for a pub that we had spied on our first day in London for some English faire and ale. Our self directed day had been a success and now it was back to the hotel for some rest before our final whole day in London which was going to be a self directed walking tour of the Kensington area.