London Boiling!

We managed to time our visit to London to coincide precisely with a massive heat wave, so our first morning in London dawned hot and sticky, but with beautiful sunshine.

We took advantage of that by getting on our pre-booked hop-on-hop-off bus to make our way into the centre of town.

This photo marks the start of my attempt to capture the Monopoly streets. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time for me to completely commit to this goal, so I don't think I even got half way. Oh well!

Our accomodation was quite near to Marble Arch (pictured below), which made catching the bus from there extremely easy. This was the site where hangings used to be performed.

Our first item on the day's agenda once we'd made our way into town was to collect our pre-booked London Pass. More on that in a minute. We were treated to some very typically London-ish architecture as we drove in.

Monopoly street number two! One of my favourite green ones!

The seven-level sports clothing store (where Tom later went to buy new running shoes for a fraction of the Australian price), Lillywhites.

Her Majesty's Theatre, where the Phantom of the Opera is still playing to sell-out crowds.

I think this counts as half a Monopoly street, right?

Tom decided to do a bit of lion surfing... as you do.

And then, of course, gave him a friendly scratch.

The Admiralty Arch, nearby...

An equestrian statue and Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.

Monopoly street number three (and a half)!

And voila! Scrap that half point, and upgrade it to a full number fourth Monopoly street!

After all of these wanderings we finally found what we thought was the office where we could collect our London Pass.

It wasn't. So Tom decided to take advantage of the situation in some way, and got in the gallows...

Cuddled up to the royal couple...

And made the most of it!

We moved on to try to find the right place for London Pass collection. On the way, Monopoly street number five!

We waved (but didn't bother going into) Ripley's. Too much to do!

Monopoly street number six! On a roll!

We finally found the right place to get our London Pass, and were horrified to discover that it involved an hour-long wait in a line (which was up in the rafters of the non-air-conditioned building - in the middle of a heat wave, might I remind you). So much for being organised and pre-booking from Australia! Lesson learned? Do NOT pre-book! Turn up, pay a euro to use their little computer to order one, and collect immediately.

So, hot and sticky and very grumpy at London, we left and attempted to recover our good spirits. We then increased our frustration by then trying to reboard a bus and discovering that there were no available spots on the top deck anymore. Not in the mood to swelter downstairs with no air conditioning and dirty windows through which we couldn't take photos, we decided to explore London on foot until it started to be nice to us again.

Monopoly street number seven!

We found a lovely little garden to wander through...

We found a statue dedicated to Ghurkas...

English horses guards always seem to draw crowds.

That sign reads "BEWARE. HORSES MAY KICK OR BITE. THANK YOU". Got to love that disclaimer! And the very polite, English 'Thank you' on the end.

We passed a monument to 'The Women of World War II'...

And then we found Number 10 Downing Street! For some reason we thought we would actually be able to walk into Downing St, but the whole thing is closed off. That actually does make sense.

And then we saw Big Ben for the first time. Although every tour guide we came into contact with emphasised very strongly the fact that Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the clock tower, not the tower itself. A very important distinction, apparently!

We found Abraham Lincoln... positioned very importantly near Parliament House because of his involvement in abolishing slavery.

And then... Westimster Abbey. So very very pretty.

We had decided to avoid activating our two-day museum pass until the following day, because we had wasted so much of the morning lining up to get it and wandering around getting lost. So, we didn't line up to go inside, but added that to the list of things to do in the next couple of days.

We wandered through a lovely little park along the river, heading for Lambeth Bridge.

We crossed the bridge, and I had a flashback to the soundtrack to the musical 'Me and My Girl' that my parents used to play when I was a girl - here I am doing The Lambeth Walk

Tom saw the word 'mission' and immediately started doing his 007 impression.

We crossed the street very safely...

And as our stomachs started to make themselves heard, we found this lovely little corner pub for a nice English Sunday Roast. Unfortunately the weather wasn't exactly roast weather, but we pushed through.

It was beautifully eclectic inside.

And it was clear by seating allocation which of the clientele was most important.

Tom had his first pint of beer...

And we busied ourselves with our hearty English fare.

Yes, that is a ginormous Yorkshire Pudding on top.

With our energy restored, we moved on to the nearby Imperial War Museum.

It was fantastic. Well, as fantastic as a museum about war can get. Very well done, at least.

Can you spot Tom here?

Britain's version of Uncle Sam.

Tom then got to continue his 007 impression in their spy section.

The section dedicated to the holocaust was one of the best (so to speak) that we've seen. No photos in there, though.

After spending so much less time in there than we would have liked to (too many things to see, too little time), we moved on into the heat again, and walked to the nearest bus collection point to see more of the route.