Trip to London - Part 2

The next day started with a lavish English breakfast.

Breakfast is one thing I love the most about travel :) because unlike other meals of the day, you can find decent veg breakfast options almost everywhere. At least I do.

Though I wouldn't call myself a foodie, the absence of quality edible food or delay in its arrival does change my mood/tone. Well, most of the time :).

After a fulfilling breakfast, we were all set to explore London.

We had to plan the agenda for what all to visit and how. Options were - taking a bus tour or do it ourselves. Like I mentioned in Part 1, a few landmarks were within walk-able distance. So, we decided to skip the bus for the first day.

We started the day with watching the famous Horse Guards Parade in the city of Westminster. The last time I had watched a horse with a rider(city police) was in Mysore, one of the better maintained historic cities of India.

This ceremony of changing The Queen's Life Guard is definitely a sight not to miss. Fascinating!

Among the things that were captivating in central London, the boat tour of the river Thames ranks on the higher side. As much as I distance myself from too-much-water .. the night-light and mesmerizing view of the Tower Bridge kept me glued to the side seats of the boat. The front seats were still too much for my water fear/disgust. 
Let's just say I am not a beach person or a ocean/river person for that matter.
A water fountain or waterfall? May be :).

The mid november London was pretty cold. Colder than what we had packed for. We did get an idea of London winter through available means but the weather forecasts cannot give accurate data for more than 8-10 days in advance.

So, we were stuck with feeling cold while still enjoying London winter. To make it worse we also had rain forecasts for next couple of days. 

Had it not been for the weather we would have visited more places on our own. All hail (hell) to London weather we were left with no option but to go for the Bus-Tour now. 

During our bus ride, I realized how much could I relate to those tourists I used to see back in Manhattan/NYC. Tourists probably resent to people who actually live at such picturesque places. (May be not; I somewhat did :P)
I mean, they have to come all the way from their respective homes, around the world, for just a few days of experience and long bills of travel/lodging expenses!

TBC ....

Trip to London - Part 1

Since a few months now, I wanted to be more regular with blogging especially because I happened to have some content to write about and didn't have to force my thoughts into a blog post. I just don't have that thing in me! I cant force myself to sit and write just for the sake of it. The topic should occur to me; the words should drive me.
I realize and I read it everywhere that one needs be more regular in one's blogging world most importantly to improve the blogging skills( I definitely need that :)).But off late I got busy with things, I will update later about, and had to take a back seat. 
Well, I am still going to be around :-).

This one was long due.
I had drafted some of the parts, mostly the key things, during the trip itself. And now, when I found some time to write, this one felt like to be prioritized before I forget the links to give a finishing touch to those drafts. Yeah, I have a very selective memory. I remember certain things/incidents (even after decades) like its carved on the stones but forget most of the others like it was written on a beach sand.

So lets start. The trip was for a week, a short one according to me. To add to that, it was a much colder London than what we thought it would be when we packed for the trip. Anyway, we did enjoy the untimely rain that caused the sudden drop in temperature but then we were not adequately prepared (clothing wise) so we could go out only when the weather allowed so with our lot.

We stayed in Haymarket Hotel in Central London. Ours was a typical British styled, cozy and elegant room. The place was perfect for tourists. Many landmarks were at a walking distance. The architecture of the surroundings dragged me straight to the history books. Each and every building around that area had a class and antique touch to it. What soothed my mind/heart along with my eyes was the fact that it was not made up to picture a theme; the built was all original and brilliant!
There was so much to cover around our hotel area itself that we decided we will wait for the suitable weather for the city tour.

After resting the first day, we started with the Trafalgar Square, which was just a couple of blocks away.
We were on an early morning walk when suddenly a gentleman stopped us to not cross a certain not-drawn boundary. It was then that we realized the camera and crew around - there was some shooting going on. The area was vacated and there were a couple of dressed up actors. Based on their attires and lights' setup, it looked like some period feature shoot to us. It was my first live shoot watching experience.
Although having lived in Manhattan for a couple of years, I did come across many chances when some shooting was scheduled nearby but by the time we used to know of it , the area used to get too crowded to see anything. This one being a very early morning shoot, didn't have much crowd/audience to disturb.
I was so excited to see how things happen that we stayed there for a while . We curiously observed all the takes/retakes, makeup/touch-up, props, director's instructions, camera angles, dialogue recitals etc. The actors certainly have a very creative and fun world :).

We managed to click this picture before we were requested not to take any photos.

We then came back to our room to have breakfast and plan the rest of the things.

to be continued...