Across The Pond - More London

London continued……….

It’s really crazy how much of London we saw in one day. We seemed to never stop moving (except for lunch). After we left Trafalgar Square, we headed off in the direction of Covent Garden. It didn’t take but a block down the street for us to get distracted by street art. We noticed these lovely carved & painted wooden people looking down on us from the front landing of a building......

 We walked another few steps down the street and found more of their friends inside the entrance to an underground eatery. Well, knowing our family contingent, we just couldn’t resist jumping into the art to become a piece of it. What a bunch of stiffs! :o)

Covent Garden –
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End. This area was mainly fields until the 16th century.  It was briefly settled when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". Go here for more history: http://www.coventgardenlondonuk.com/history-architecture

I must share this moment of street music we found while in Covent Garden. Something new we have never quite seen or heard before – A young man playing the street cone. Yes, a street cone like the ones used to block off parts of a street. Extremely creative and really fabulous:

We hopped back on the tube at Covent Garden and headed in the direction of The Tower of London. I thought I would share a short video of traveling through the rabbit warren that is the London tube system. Thank goodness we had Rowan and Jake pointing us all in the right direction. Here is a video and photos of our trek through the tube system:

waiting for the train to The Tower of London

Jake and James just couldn't resist the temptation of doing some ab strengthening exercises in the tube train. They were hanging from the bars on the ceiling. We were waiting for them to end up on their arses on the floor of the train. They are such monkey boys........

When we popped up out of the tube station at The Tower of London, we were instantly met by fantastic views of the Tower.

The history is fascinating. Built in the 1070's, the castle had many uses including housing Henry III, the royal mint, the crown jewels and of course many famous prisoners were held here. The torture chambers in the castle are famous. Guy Fawkes was held here (he just seems to keep showing up everywhere these days).

Go to this link for more history: http://www.history.co.uk/explore-history/history-of-london/tower-of-london.html

Tower Bridge (crossing the Thames) is all dressed up for the Summer Olympic Games.

Jake loves to get his big head in pictures like this.

We decided we needed to do something about Jake's big head pictures, so we found this guy to take care of that big head for us……..and the crowd said "off with his big head"! :o)

It was now getting late in the day, so we decided to head back to the Olympic Village (where we parked at Erin & James' apartment) to get the car.  As you can imagine, there is VERY high security around the whole Olympic complex so we couldn’t get close on foot. Our best views were from the car as we drove by everything while on the motorway.

The Olympic Stadium

 Not sure which stadium this is.....

The velodrome cycle arena we believe

We headed back into downtown London in our car (call us CRAZY!) to get to the Indian section of town so we could get some curry for dinner. We met a chap on the street who had recommended the Brick Lane section of the Indian quarter and a restaurant called City Spice. We found the place and it was just FABULOUS! If you ever come to London, you MUST have Indian food somewhere here. The best Indian food you will get outside of India.

In City Spice

 Yummy, yummy, YUMMY curry and lamb byriani, etc.

We had a really great whirlwind of a day here in London. We will all sleep well tonight.

More food coming next…………