Day 10 - Sightseeing in London

Today was our first official day to do whatever our little hearts desired!! It was great!

Of course we went into London to explore and see as much as our feet would take us. After planning out our trip the night before and then getting on the wrong bus this morning, we learned that with traveling you have to be flexible and go with the flow. We started in Covent Gardens and watched some street performers...it was super touristy there (I know that's kind of contradictory seeing as I'm a tourist but still...) so we decided to follow a Rick Steve's walking tour on Strands street, a place filled with crazy history dealing with the fire in 1666 to the blitz of WWII. Our first stop was Somerset House which is this incredible mansion which has statues and a big floor fountain in the middle of its courtyard. We went at the perfect timing too because a local dance company was doing a free performance on the fountain which was cool to see! Next we checked out a few other spots like churches and spots that were apparently in the Harry Potter movies (I'm not a Potter follower at all but Mary was very excited to be where Harry once was). Afterwards we found this really awesome little church called Bride's Church (see picture below). We found out there was a crypt inside and it has deep history with the fire and the blitz. We also discovered that a baker in the city became inspired by the church and started the trend of 3 tiered wedding cakes! Cool, huh? There were also crypts under the church we checked out, here's Mary in the crypt (pic in the crpyt)!

Next we found St. Paul's Cathedral although it wasn't open for tours today, it was amazing to look at. We also of course had to take a jumping pic in front of it! All of the buildings here have such fine deatils, it's awesome!

At the end of our day we went on the London Bridge and found the Monument for the fire of 1666...there is this guy named Wren who rebuilt most of Strand street which includes around 30 churches and buildings and he also designed this monument (see picture below). It's said that if the monument were to fall east, the top would fall right on the place where the fire started. I like finding out these details about why someone made it the way they did. Also today we discovered these pianos randomly placed throughout London...apparently they're for the City of London Festival but there's just sitting there waiting to be played! I decided to rev up my piano skills and test them out again : )

Another great day in London, although exhausting, well worth it!