Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

Tower Bridge

Let the adventures begin! Three years after taking our big Europe trip that was intended to be our last hoorah before moving across the country, buying a house and having kids, we decided to skip the "having kids" bit in favor of more world travel.

After much research on where to go, all sources pointed to Croatia and Slovenia, which have been recently "discovered" as top tier must-see destinations. Still largely untouched, we decided to go now before major tourism changed it forever. Damn those tourists...

Getting to Croatia meant having to fly through a large western European city for a connecting flight, and the cheapest flight we could find included an 8-hour layover in London. Not ones to turn down a travel opportunity, we viewed it as our chance to scope out a city we hadn't seen yet. So, to London we flew.

House of Parliament & Big Ben

While the advantage of a long layover is getting to see a cool new place you may not otherwise have, the disadvantage of such a short trip is that tours are often the best way to see a lot in a little time. Barf. We hate tours. But, we sucked it up for the sake of simplicity and hopped one of those Big Bus tours to get the lay of the London land.

Winding through busy London streets, we saw all of the major attractions including Trafalgar Square, London Tower, Tower Bridge, the London Eye, the House of Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. Part of the tour included a boat cruise down the Thames, so we managed to squeeze in getting a water view and some fun commentary of the city as well.

Buckingham Palace

It was awesome to see so many of the sights we regularly see on the news, or in the tabloids, but I'll admit that I was slightly underwhelmed. Maybe it was the jetlag or lack of sleep or lack of food we had eaten, but we both agreed that if we get the chance to come back to London again, we'll likely skip all of the "supposed to see it" stuff and spend our time walking around the city, people watching and chilling with a beer in front of a pub like the locals do. That's a bit more "us" anyway.



Onward to Croatia!

Locals enjoying beer after work

Streets of London

London Bridge

Westminster Abbey