A Fourth Time and Counting

We haven’t had too much planned the last few weekends and won’t have anything really planned until our trip back to Minnesota in August so we are trying to do a few activities in London that we haven’t done yet. This past weekend we went to the Imperial war museum. It was the fourth time that I have been there, but since Susan hadn’t been there yet I figured I should log a few more hours.

Even though London is an expensive city, they do offer a lot of excellent free museums, this being one of them. Overall, I think it is a fantastic museum for all ages and interests, but even more so for those who have an interest in 20th century warfare. When you first walk in to the museum there is a huge open hall filled with original weapons and vehicles mostly from WWI & WWII. The museum is very interactive from being able to touch and experience all the weapons and vehicles, to a WWI trench walk through, and a WWII London blitz experience. They have a wonderful holocaust exhibit as well as a good overview of all the conflicts from WWII until present day. I have probably spent almost ten hours there and have still not seen everything and even with seeing many of the exhibits multiple times it still doesn’t get old.

After the museum, we walked to the Southbank of the Thames and walked along the river to Westminster Bridge. It is one of the best views of Parliment and Big Ben but we didn't get to enjoy it too long as started to rain a bit.

On Tuesday I was able to take Elaine Rogers (my good friend Charlie’s mom) on a tour through some of London and then she and her son Rick, who she was here with as he occasionally travels to London on business, came over for dinner. Our tour started out at Westminster and continued by Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, The Strand, & Fleet Street and all the stops and sights along the way. We were able to cover a lot of ground in our afternoon and I was able to show her some of London that she might not have been able to see otherwise. After we had dinner we all walked down by Holland Park to get some Gelato before they caught the tube back home. They had a couple more days left in London before they were going to take the train to Paris and spend a few days there before going home. We had a great time as it is always nice to see some familiar faces.

As I said we don’t have a lot of stuff planned for the next few weeks, but will try to keep the blog updated as much as possible in the mean time with anything remotely interesting. Maybe look for a European Beer post or another history lesson in the future. If anyone has any suggestions or anything about London or our travels you would like elaboration on, leave your ideas in the comment section and maybe it will spark a blog!