Saturday 11th April 2009

Deb and I slept well after our big day yesterday. We went down to breakfast at the YHA – basically the same food each morning. There is quite a crowd of young (and a few older) people staying here.
We have decided to take the bus to Waterloo Station and then the underground to St Pancras, then to go up to the International Terminal to find out if they have a left luggage area where we can leave one suitcase and one carry-on bag as we have too much luggage for us to manage on the bus tour.
We went up to the International Terminal and find out where the Eurostar leaves from, and then find the left luggage area. The terminal is massive. They will hold luggage for more than 24 hours, but it is quite expensive ₤8.00 per piece for the first 24 hours then ₤4.00 per piece per day afterwards – we decide to think a bit more.
We have a cup of coffee while there, and then decide to find the YHA where we will be staying the night before travelling on the Eurostar to see how far it is from the station, and how we will manage with the bags – i.e. will we need a taxi or can we walk.
The St Pancras YHA is on Euston Road, almost directly opposite the station, and about 200 metres walk – we go in to see if they hold luggage for more than 24 hours, and meet a very helpful receptionist who says yes they do and they are much more reasonably priced than the Eurostar office. The YHA has been undergoing renovations and has only recently been reopened (ie the week before). This means we can leave some luggage when we do the Cornwall – Isle of Wight section of our tour, and I should be able to manage the bags without always needing a taxi.
After that we walk across the the British Library to have a look – but unfortunately it is closed for Easter. So back to the underground to go to the Tower of London – which I had wanted to visit.
We have a small problem with the underground as they have closed a number of lines and stations for maintenance, and don’t advise that one that we planned to use to get to the Tower is closed. However we are able to sort that out eventually but it required a lot of walking in the underground.
We get off at London Bridge and will walk from there, but being hungry and it being nearly 12.00md we decide to buy a Cornish Pasty (genuine) from a stall at the entrance to the Underground – they were delicious !!
So we walked over the London Bridge and down some stairs to find the Thames Path which we walked along until we reached the Tower of London.
The crowds there were massive – huge queues to get in for the tour – we waiting around 30-40 minutes to get our tickets, and then queued again to get into the tower. We started off on a tour with a Yeoman Warden, but found it too hard to hear as there were so many in the group. We decided to purchase to audio tour and do it on our own, which was a wise move, as we were able to choose which part of the Tower we wanted to see.
I really only wanted to see the Crown Jewels so we queued again to get into the Jewel Building – while waiting we took photos.
It was quite amazing how quickly the queue moved through the display – and we had the audio commentary to tell us all about what we were seeing.
Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed – so no photos, but we purchased a package of postcards in the shop which had all the major jewels and crowns in it.
After we had finished the tour – it was around 3.30pm and Deb and I were getting pretty tired. We wanted to walk across Tower Bridge, so headed off, but not before having a traditional meal of fish and chips and a diet coke (have to at least try a bit to watch weight !!!) I must say it was delicious.
So we headed off to find our way up to the Tower Bridge and walk across. Lots of photos were taken along the way and you can see them in the Web Album.
At least the rain had stopped, and we found a small shop on the other side where we could buy some skim milk for breakfast, some laundry detergent for the clothes, and some cup-of-soup for dinner – as we decided that we didn’t need to eat another dinner at the YHA after the fish and chips.
We then found the right bus stop to get us back to the YHA, where we collapsed and had a lie down.
Tomorrow we are going to go to a shopping centre to see if we can find some trackpants for Deb as she is feeling the cold, and we still have Scotland and Ireland to face and they seem to be colder than here.