Tour London - our Experience

After many months of planning, anticipation, and with lots of hitch, we managed to get UK visa, and a not-so-great accommodation in London during the New Year holidays. As expected, the weather was incredibly lousy --but we did cover most of the famous places.

We had booked for a package ticket for London Dungeons, Madame Tussards and London Eye, which is comparatively cheaper than purchasing them separately. With the huge Q stretching beyond the railway station, we had to wait for 1 hour to get inside the not-so-great-London Dungeons (LD).

They claim to give the scariest experience with London’s bygone history. But, they only make you laugh most of the times. Infact, it’s a waste of time and money to visit London Dungeons. Narration of London's scariest history is presented in Madame Tussards as well.

Coming out from LD, we rushed to Madame Tussards – the famous wax museum. For the first timers, it gives great pleasure to see all the famous personalities from almost all fields. For those who’ve already visited a wax museum else where, you will note that the wax figures are slightly taller than the actual size. We spent a few hours inside, gazing through each and every wax figures, and taking pictures with the close-to-heart personalities. Some of the wax figures were lifeless, and a few of them were amazing. I liked Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts, Robie Williams, Mr.Big Bachan, Diana to name a few.When we were out of Madame Tussards, it was 3.30pm, and it was dark. We decided to have a quick snack, and reached London Eye. It was 31st Dec 2008, and unfortunately, London Eye was closed for New Year fireworks arrangements. And we had plenty of time to watch Fireworks. So we reached Piccadilly Circus. When I first heard this name, I thought it’s a circus, but learnt that Circus means Circle in Latin. This street is famous for its video and neon sign displays.

After gazing thru' Piccadilly Circus for some time, we strolled down the street along with countless other people walking the same direction to watch new year fireworks. With roads being blocked and millions of people already waiting their way to watch fireworks, we were not able to reach London Eye. We somehow managed to get a place near to the banks of Thames River with the London Eye upfront to us. The New Year countdowns, the Big Ben bells @ 12 am, and the breathtaking fireworks display lasted for 20 minutes. Yippee..Happy New Year...It was worth a trip for New Year!!!


With the heavy crowd, road diversions, blockage, delay in bus and tube services, we managed to reach our Hotel by 3.30am(sigh). Next day, we left to London Eye. Thanks to God, the Q was relatively less, and we had a quick and feel-good flight journey in LE. It was good, but not great for the media hype that was created. I cannot treat it as a great icon in London. Probably the view of London city at night times is worth a try.

Quickly after LE, we gazed through the roads, took few photos here and there, in Thames River, Big Ben and house of parliament, Westminster Abbey, Victoria Station, Trafalgar Square. Time to grab something for Lunch – thanks to Mc D for its proximity. We also made some phone calls to give our New Year wishes to our loved ones in India. But it was already dark when we were out of the famous Red colored telephone booths.

Tho aaj ka din bhi karab ho gaya :( tho kya…hum night shots try kar sakthey hain…Our next destination was Tower Bridge (most of us mistake this to be London Bridge). Night shot mode did work out to some extent!! It was a breathtaking view. The dazzling lights, its reflection in the river, nearby famous London skylines - gives a spectacular view!! Wow…one should visit this place especially during night time.



We then reached Saravana Bhavan Restaurant in East Ham. That’s one of the best parts of our entire trip. We dint miss to visit East Ham even a single day. All the 5 days ended in East Ham. Either with Saravana Bhavan or Vasantha Bhavan or Dosa Corner (being Vegetarians :)). East Ham is a replica of any famous streets in Chennai. You can see people conversing in Tamil (made me feel home), you get plenty of Indian products, Indian DVDs, all those pithalai porukkals (artificial jewels in Tamil slang) u get in Ranganathan Street...

Next morning, we reached Buckingham Palace by 9.30 am. We had a short visit to the Queen’s gallery, and came back to the entrance of the palace to witness the Change of guard’s ceremony. The crowd was populating every second, and we struggled to find a good place to view the ceremony. We got scattered in the crowd, and eventually landed amidst the crowd. The guards, their winter dress, music, perfection in marching, the long black fur cap were really nice. With half of the day spent at the palace, we rushed to a travel centre to book for our 1 day tour outside London. Then we had limited GBP with us, which forced us to search for a good money exchange centre. With all that getting over, we went to Wimbledon Lawn Tennis stadium, but unfortunately the tour timings got over. Once again a flop!!

Ok…so where to go next…we decided to visit Kensington Palace, the then official residence of Princess Diana. It was completely dark at 4.30, and the palace was closed for New Year. Yet another flop show!! We went to East Ham for dinner, and reached our Hotel in Peckam Rye. The next morning, we went to Victoria Coach station to take our 1 day tour outside London. Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Roman Baths are the places of our visit. Since it was a organised tour, we did manage our time, and with the guide, got to know more about the places.

Windsor Castle is still an official residence of British Royal family. Change of guards, round tower, state apartments, St.George Chapel are few things you can’t miss. It is a huge castle, and when you stroll through the state apartments of the Castle, you feel the Royal life. Amazing architecture, beautiful interiors, carvings, paintings, red carpets, royal furniture, chandeliers et cetera gives you a “WoW” effect.

Our next destination was Stonehenge (Hanging stones), a prehistoric monument located at Salisbury plains. Great people still debate on who built these stones, why was this built, was this a burial ground? Was this a place of pilgrimage for pagans? Where are the remaining stones? And the answers to this still remain a mystery, though archaeologists have their own predictions. Visit to the lonely stones on the Salisbury is bliss, especially with a sunrise or sunset.

Moving away from Salisbury plains, we reached Bath – famous for Roman Baths. They are the ancient buildings built by Romans for public bathing. What remains now are the ruins of the bath, the Minerva temple and a few statues. The significance about this place is you see the engineering wonder of ancient Romans and its magnificent hot springs. We left Bath around 4.30pm, and reached central London at 8.00pm or so.

The last day in London, but with lot of pending places to visit - St.Paul’s Cathedral, St.James Park, The tower of London, London Zoo, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Greenwich prime Meridian, Lords Cricket Stadium and Wimbledon Lawn tennis Stadium. Giving prime importance to sports, we decided to visit cricket and tennis stadium.

It’s a dream for every cricket fan to visit Lord’s or watch a cricket match there, at least once in a lifetime. It was a dream come true when we rushed to the Lord’s Cricket stadium as the tour was about to begin. The tour was breathtaking – we visited the halls, the discussion rooms, the place where Queen E II had watched the cricket, the place where Kapil Dev shook the champagne when India won the World cup, the chairs where all the famous personalities sat, the place where Ganguly removed his shirt, the change rooms of host country, the seats, the paintings inside the hall, the sports gallery, the ashes cup, evolution of cricket, fotographs of cricket legents, some of the T-shirts, bats, shoes, balls signed and used by those legends, the pitch, the ground, the broadcasting centre, the old building of Marylebone Cricket Council, and the history of the building and Lords. It was full fun.

It was already time to visit Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Stadium to catch our last tour. The tour started immediately when we entered the entrance. We plunged in to hear more about the stadium, and the history. You can see all possible places with green colour – the Wimbledon colour. Due to the roof construction, we were not able to visit Centre court. Unfortunate!!

We strolled through the lawns, visited most of the courts, most famous and new Court No.1, its ground area and indoor stadium. Best part about indoor stadium is that it housed many interesting things like a video on how to make tennis bats, its production process, some of the famous speeches, famous tournaments, and the evolution of tennis as a game, women players in tennis, the famous Wimbledon cup and lot more. They also feature a cinema in a 200° screen that immerses the viewer into the world of The Championships by showing a film about the science of tennis. An interesting one!!

When we came out after the interesting tour, we noticed that the time was 4.30 pm, and we had our flight at 6.30pm. Good thing was that, we checked out of hotel, and kept our luggages in Victoria station’s luggage room. But the sad thing is that it will take easy 1.30 hrs to reach airport from Wimbledon. To the jinx, the bus that connects to Victoria was late, and we were waiting in Wimbledon village till 5.25 pm – no taxis, no other options left out. Finally, a bus came, and we reached Victoria station at 5.45pm. We infact enquired the airlines if we can cancel our flight and book for the next flight. But with a strong intuition, we took our luggage, and called for a taxi. The taxiwala was very nice; he made us reach the airport at 6.15pm. We rushed inside the airport to check in our luggages, but the check in was closed. They finally accepted our luggages in the next flight to zurich. We quickly finished our immigration and baggage clearance, and ran to catch the flight. Infact, the flight was just waiting for us!! It was a long corridor from the baggage clearance, and we were gasping for breath, so difficult to run so long…finally, we were inside the flight, and in no time, the pilot announced the departure of aircraft!! Happily landed in Zurich, waited for our luggage, and learnt its arriving only the next day. Sri and Navaneeth went to the airport the next day to collect our luggages.

Back to talks about London….it rocks! It's definitely not the cheapest place in the world, but still it rocks. Lots to do, lots to see and most importantly, lots to eat and drink. Not to forget its best tube services. I would love to go to London some time again in my life!!