London - Day 5 - Friday

Today was our early day. We had to be at the hotel down the street before 8 am to get picked up for our day tour of Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford. No doubt the tour company told us to be ready early because we arrived a bit ahead of time and had to wait a little while before the bus came to take us to Victoria Coach Station. There we changed buses to get on the proper one for our tour.

The morning was overcast and misty but not really raining, though it was enough to keep me wiping my glasses clean. Our first stop was Windsor Castle, which the queen considers "home" (vs. the "office", Buckingham Palace). We had a very interesting audio tour but frustratingly, no photos were allowed inside the castle though we did get some of the grounds. Still, it was interesting to be in the rooms where royalty received fellow heads of state and to learn about the history of the place.


On our guide's advice we grabbed some lunch-to-go and got back on the bus bound for Stonehenge. As the drive took quite some time we had plenty of time to finish the food and the weather changed such that the sun came out again.

Stonehenge was fascinating, though smaller than I'd thought, even though I'd been warned about that in the guide books. The parking area is on one side of the motorway and the circle on the other. It was odd how cool it was on the car park side, yet warm nearer the stones. An hour or so was plenty of time here, even with the obligatory stop at the gift shop.


Then we were on our way to Oxford. At least, we tried to be on our way. Due to a pretty decent traffic jam, it took us an extra long time to get to Oxford. Once we arrived, we only had about an hour before we had to leave. Our guide gave us the whirlwind tour and then a bit of free time to examine what we liked and shop. I do wish we'd had time to take some of the University's tours as I'm told it's quite interesting. Oh well, something to do when I come back!

We had the driver drop us off at a tube stop so we could ride it over to the Marble Arch. It's just across from the east end of Hyde Park but is still considered West London. We'd not been to this section of town before and saw a lot more Middle Eastern folks here than we'd seen previously.


From there we hopped back on the tube and continued east for Covent Garden. Due to my faulty memory we ended up taking the long way around to get there but had a stroll through a lovely garden area down near the river. We'd planned to eat in the Garden but the restaurant prices there were quite steep. We ended up in the West End again, passing our theatre from the night before and finally stopped in at an upstairs restaurant near Picadilly Circus. We got to sit next to the windows and keep an eye on what was happening below. Always interesting to do that kind of thing in a foreign town - you just never know what you're going to see!

After being up early, we're back at the room early, ready for another good night's sleep.