14/7/2010 - Southampton, London, UK (Best of London by city drive tour)

This morning is the first day we've gotten up to overcast/drizzly skys! all in all it's a nice change - the temperature is in the low 20s today!

Southampton is a nice harbour, mostly new since WW2 - lots of Maritime Museums - the guide pointed out that this is where Titanic sailed from (Great to tell a bunch of people on a cruise!).

The drive in didn't take too long - about an hour and a half - the countryside was much like Normandy, lots of fields, everything green and lush. We travelled into London and went past a few interesting things:

Little Ben

MI6 headquarters

Then we stopped for a while at the Tower of London, had a look at the tower bridge/etc.

We drove around London for a while, seeing various sites, including Nelson's column, Waterloo Station and Buckingham Palace.
We had fish and chips for lunch at an English pub! lunch was really nice!

After lunch we stopped near Parliment and walked around looking at the various buildings

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

We drove past Scotland Yard, and then the rain began - it was quite heavy, a bunch of the people on our tour got caught out in it - thankfully we were waiting in the bus at the time!
London felt much more cramped than Paris, also the buildings were a bit strange - very little consistency. The tour itself was the worst we've done! Problems with the bus, lunch and putting a half dozen physically disabled people on same bus left us with little time to actually see the sights (when it takes ten minutes to exit the bus and you're only stopped for 15mins, it makes it difficult). This is the first tour I've seriously thought about complaining about.