UK - Hook, Basingstoke

Hook and Basingstoke were visited often and few photographs in one place here !

Hook

BASINGSTOKE

UK - London

Trip mates - Karthik, Prashant

Timeline - June 2016

We visited London for the first time. It was a very short trip less than a week. We had an evening and a half day to go around London before boarding our flights back; and we did not want to miss it.

Day-1 (Eve)

First, we reached London Tower from Heathrow by the Heathrow express and then by the popular underground tubes of  London.

We walked around the Tower of London and for clear reasons, did not want to visit the inside of it and we moved around for some time.

We then walked towards the London Tower Bridge. An iconic bridge on the Thames, recollecting the famous school rhymes ... :) The view from the Tower is a time killer - skyline of London.

We walked around and beneath the Tower Bridge for different views on either sides of the bridge by the banks of Thames. We did get some got views. There are stairs by the sides of the bridge to climb down and so as to climb up as well. 

After spending close to an hour by the Thames near Tower bridge, we walked back to the Underground, but not before witnessing modern building with different architectures by the skyline.

As dark clouds loomed around, we reached the Westminster tube station in few minutes before reaching back to the hotel room. It was quite dark, we took few mins to grab a bite by the McD near London Eye. Our first view of London Eye, UK Parliament and Westminster Abbey were more of recollecting the poems and non-detail stories we had in the school in the past.

We returned back the hotel rooms with a plan for spending few hours in the morning to see the palace and places around before heading back to the airport.

Day-2

We completed some pending work, checked-out of the airport hotel, dropped our luggage at the reception and reached London to continue a quick walk tour with a map. We reached Green park station and then strolled by the Green park. It was a great coincidence that we reached Buckingham palace and Change of Guards just started. With no delay, we witnessed the event almost with no idea that we are going to see it.

We then walked around to see the Buckingham palace from different views, the Victoria Memorial and then to the St.James park.

From St.James Park to London Eye, one gets to see all monuments, tourist spots and popular landmarks on London. Just hit the road for another 2-3 kms, one would cover the Top 30-35 things to see in London :)

Few places we noticed and spent some time about:

• Green Park
• Buckingham Palace
• Buckingham Palace Garden
• Victoria memorial
• St.James Park
• Guard's museum
• Guards Memorial
• Royal Naval Division War Memorial
• Horse Guards parade ground
• Churchill War rooms
• Imperial War Museums
• Cavalry museum
• Dover House
• 10, Downing Street (PM Office)
• The Women of World War II
• The Cenotaph (War memorial)
• Trafalgar Square
• The Admiral's arch
• White Hall
• Charing Cross
• and ... many statues .... and official buildings of the UK

Then, you have the big Ben, UK Parliament, Thames River, Westminster palace, Westminster Abbey, Victoria Tower Garden , various other monuments to see!

We then reached back on time to the hotel, took the flight across thunderstorms to Cologne, had a business meeting and then off to Dusseldorf in a rush to catch the flight back to home !

To COLOGNE