Different places to travel » Castle

How to see London as a tourist

Traveller — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:02:43 +0000

A huge number of tourists visit London every year, and follow the regular tourist cycle of visiting the sights of the city. This post is my experience of the same.
We had gone to visit some relatives living near London, and thought about doing a visit to some of the sights and beautiful places in London. We were living in Dulwich, which was some distance away from Victoria station, from where we wanted to start the tour. Now, we had a choice, whether to do the tour using the tube, or using a bus. If you are looking for convenience and a bit of speed, then the tube is the way to go, since it is fast, avoiding London traffic. However, one of the main problems with the tube is that you would feel like a bit of a rabbit, suddenly coming up from a hole to view some great building, and then diving underground to see another building. You do not get a feel of the city, and that is what we were trying to do. So, it was the bus that we are going to use, but there was the realization that London roads can get crowded and traffic would cause a journey on the bus to take time.
There are tourist buses that do the rounds of most of London’s tourist sites, with the buses being of the hop-on, hop-off type. You take a ticket for the bus, get on, get down at any of their stops to see the tourist location, and then get onto the next bus that comes on, and it can be very convenient. These buses come by every 5-10 minutes, so there is not much waiting that needs to be done. Our journey started by taking a train first to Victoria, and just outside Victoria Station, there were these buses ready to start. We had an option to buy take a ticket to Madame Tussaud’s while buying our bus ticket (the bus ticket cost us 21 pounds each), and given that the Madame Tussaud’s ticket allows one to bypass the regular queue, it was well worth it (and did I mention that the ticket was also available at a discount ?). The bus ticket also entitles you to a small cruise on the Thames, which was also great fun.
What are some of the tourist places that this bus tour covers ? There are several different tours, so the actual places covered are different in each tower, but some of the places to cover are:
Buckingham Palace,
Westminster Abbey,
St. Paul’s Cathedral,
The Tower of London,
Big Ben,
London Eye,
Marble Arch,
TrafalgarR Square,
Waterloo (and more places)

A map of the tour is available at this link.

So, you get started on the bus (and it was a double decker bus); I quickly climbed to the upper level even though it was windy, since you get a great view. We got down at several stops on the way, with the places that we spent a lot of time being:
London Eye (you cannot go away from London without doing a spin (1 hour) on the huge ferris wheel),

A view of London Eye at night from outside the entry point

London Eye straight ahead – view from the path right in front

Big Ben and surrounding areas (the whole area has many great buildings, where you get a great view of the architecture)

Photo of Big Ben by night – Well lighted up and an important tourist attraction

Thames (go for a cruise on the Thames, you get a short view of the history of London along with seeing the numerous bridges on the way)

A cruise ship on the Thames in London (similar to the one I was traveling in)

Passing under one of the Bridges across the Thames in London

The Hungerford Bridge over the river Thames in London

Tower of London (the place used by royalty earlier, and also used as a detention and execution place)

Part of the Tower of London as seen from the Thames

The Tower of London – A beautiful lawn replaces the moat now

The beautiful architecture of Tower of London

Buckingham Palace (the current residence of the queen, there is a great changing of the guard ceremony every alternate day at 11 in the morning)

A closer view of the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace

Close up of marching formation at Buckingham Palace changing of the guard

Front facade of Buckingham Palace when it is less crowded

The beautiful autumn at the Green Park just outside Buckingham Palace

Madam Tussaud’s (A world famous wax museum, but I got bored after around 30 minutes)
Trafalgar Square (A great open place, with a water attraction, big lions, and mermaids)

Admiralty Arch and adjoining building near Trafalgar Square in London

One of the fountains of Trafalgar Square in London

People enjoying on the bronze lions in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

The Tower Bridge looks incredible and one should visit it atleast once.

A beautiful view of the Tower Bridge in London against a blue sky

A photo of London Bridge in a beautiful setting

Photo of Tower Bridge and the buildings to one side of the bridge

Some other photos from London

Bus that takes tourists on a trip around London to the major tourist points

A beautiful view of a partially cloudy sunset over the Thames and Westminster in London

A beautifully decorated London store near the Chinese New Hour in the evening

A close up of the glass dome of the London City Hall

A glimpse of the exterior architecture of Westminster Abbey

A jetty on the Thames used to drop and pickup passengers of cruise ships

A more detailed view of the dinosaur skeleton in the central hall of the Science Museum in London

A view of the London skyline with the top of the Gherkin (Swiss Re building) in the background

Constitution Arch with the largest British bronze statue on top in Belgrave Square

You can see photos from my trip to London at this location (link)

A day trip to Dover Castle

Traveller — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:36:31 +0000

We had gone on a short trip to meet relatives in London, and I had a great urge to see Scotland. I mentioned this to the relatives, and was so politely and decently informed that I must have not done enough research. Scotland is a fair distance from London, and requires some amount of planning (and a few days) to enjoy thoroughly, and of course, this was the start of winter and it would be nice and cold. So, Scotland was dropped; I was unhappy , but one cannot argue against solid logic.
So now the search was on for an alternative, we needed to go out of London atleast once, and Dover Castle had been seen by some friends of my relatives; so Dover was the best (and actually only) possible place to go to. I had heard of Dover before (not specifically the castle though) – it is the place where the English Channel tunnel starts on the English side; in addition, Dover is the closest port to France, and must have been the first place to be attacked by any invader. So much for history, Dover Castle it was (for want of a better alternative).

View Larger Map

We did not need to hire a vehicle, relatives vehicle was good enough. And so we started – getting out of London is always the more troublesome part. Once you are out of London, then it is a straight road (around 120 kilometers) on a straight 8 lane expressway. It took roughly 2-2.5 hours to reach there, and even the expressway was beautiful on many stretches. As we reached closer, there were turnoffs for the Dover-Calais Chunnel (train under the English Channel), and soon, we could see the water of the English Channel and the cliffs of Dover.
The Castle is reached by passing through the main streets of the town of Dover, and then following the directions. The entrance to the castle is fairly expensive, (I think it was just about 10 pounds per adult), and lower for children (if you live in England or frequently visit, consider buying a Heritage package that allows a family to visit a number of places for an overall much lower rate). The road to the castle goes through a big gate, passes in front of the castle and keeps on going to the parking lot. The first thing that struck me as I started moving around was the incredible cleanliness of the place, with nothing out of place and everything spic and span. The grass looked so green and like a good carpet (although it was cold when we went in November, and hence we did not really try to sit on the grass !).
The castle is really old (you can imagine how old the whole location is when you realize that the castle also contains the ruins of a Roman lighthouse built when the Romans were in control of Britain). The castle has had sections built over a period of time, and was last used during the second World War when it was the headquarters for Admiral Ramsay (when he was over-seeing Operation Dunkirk, the saving of the British expeditionary force from the continent), and was also a field hospital and a command center. There is a vast labyrinth of tunnels built over different periods of time that also served as military headquarters.

The architecture of the castle is incredible, and since it is located on a height, the upper towers offer a good vantage position for looking over the surroundings. What is special are the exhibits inside the castle that showcase the quarters for the king when he would visit over here. There are many posters and presentations that display the going-ons in the castle when the king would visit (an interesting tidbit is that the king never paid enough to have proper work done inside the castle, and hence this was probably the first location in the world where the field of interior decoration was used to a large degree to cover up for lack of new construction).

You also get a guided tour of the tunnels used during wars, including an actual simulation with sound effects, a movie displaying the history of the war effort, as well as a chance to see the bunks, hospital areas, command centers, wireless and communication abilities, etc. This was very interesting, and made the trip very worthwhile; be sure to book this early since there is a limit to the number allowed per such visit. There is also a beautiful old church called St. Mary’s church in the premises.

Overall, the trip was a very good experience, and I had lots of fun. What took the cake in the end was the classic sunset over the English channel and the great colors of the setting sun. And then the trip back was tiring, with the inevitable letdown after a beautiful visit.