London in a Day

Pam is only visiting for one full day. Today she gets on a plane bound for the United States. And she's never been to London, so yesterday I knew we had to make the most of the time we had.

We set out in the morning -- not particularly early -- and took the tube to the eastern part of the city. From there we walked, on a Bataan Death March of sightseeing, all the way back to the West End. We saw:

The Tower of London
The Tower Bridge
The Shard
City Hall
Borough Market
Southwark Cathedral
The Millennium Bridge
St. Paul's (from the bridge)
The Tate Modern
The London Eye
The Houses of Parliament
Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
St. James Park
Buckingham Palace
Trafalgar Square

And to top it all off, we did it in the rain. Assuming that Pam survives her ordeal without contracting pneumonia, she can now say she has seen London!

Of course I'm making it sound ridiculously bad, and it was really fine. We didn't go in most of those places because we just didn't have time. We went into the Tower Bridge and walked across the upper span, which I'd never done, and we went up in the Eye because when we passed the line was absurdly short, and I thought we should seize the opportunity. Despite the rain, we had a nice view. (Above)

All in all, it was a 5-mile walk -- and this was after walking about 5 miles around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens the evening before. Fortunately Pam is as much of a walker as I am, so she held up fine!