Big Ben was our biggest priority in terms of London sights as Hallie has had a unqiue fasinaton with Big Ben (or more correctly - Elizabeth Tower ) ever since she found out about it at kindy. So we decided that the London Eye, with its spectator view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament would be one thing to splurge on.
It was definitely a budget buster but it was worth ever cents! The views were amazing! And it was suprisisng not anxiety inducing being up that high. The little pods seems really stable and spacious, I could bear feel it move and I din’t feel at all dizzy when I looked down from the top.
One recommendation I would make is: pruchasing your tockets online in advance will give you a slightly cheaper prices. We purchased the tickets onsite and didn’t have to wait long at all to get on.
Below is the exterior of St Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go inside and we actually didn’t go into Westminster Abbey either. St Paul’s Cathedral is around 60 pounds for a family of 5 while Westminster Abbey would have been around 90 pounds, so we couldn’t really justify the price, maybe if the kids were a bit older, old enough to really understand the significance of each church.
Below is the Globe Theatre, a recreation of the original Globe Theatre that was constructed to house the performances of Shakespearean plays. We paid to do the guided tour which in a large group and went for about an hour. The girls were really great during the tour, very patient and listened intently. Both Braino and I enjoyed the historical context of what London was like during Shakespeares life.
I’ve always had a mild interest in Shakespeare and his works. I do remember studying MacBeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at high school and one of the short films we made at uni was inspired by Macbeth as well. Farley has a general understanding of who Shakespeare is just from references she has picked up from books and shows and also the fact that the moons of Uranus are named after character from Shakespeare’s plays. She had a big planets and space phase too.
After the tour there was an afternoon performance of The Taming of The Shrew, which I decided to stay for. This is actually the play that the movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which one of my all time favourite movies. I purchased the cheap 5 pound standing tickets which meant I had to stand up in front of the stage for the whole 2.5 hour performance, but it wasn’t too bad really. the performance was impressive - how actors remember all those complicated Shakespearean lines of dialogue is so amazing, but the hodge-podge, op shop chic costumes kind of left me a little confused. I was expecting full on historic Shakespearean costumes. Initially I was hoping the whole family could watch a show at the Globe but it would have honestly been hard for the girls to follow along. And the sitting tickets were definitely not cheap.
Whether you’re a big fan of the Royal Family or not, I feel that visiting Buckingham Place is a must see sight in London. You can actually go inside and do a tour but it’s only available for a very narrow window of time from July to September, it’s around 32 pounds for adults and 13 pounds for children over 5 years old. Farley has had a bit of phase of interest in the royal family so it’s always a special thing to be able to show her sights like this for real, not just in books and video.
The two very iconic sights of The Tower Bridge and the Tower of London are right next to each other, further east along the Thames from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. You can do tours inside the Tower of London, which actually houses a collection of royal crown jewels and also the TowerS of the Tower Bridge, however we decided to forgo any inside tours and just enjoy the sights from the outside.
We actually found a Wagamamas restaurant right next to the Tower of London! Wagamamas went out of business in Australia in 2014 but it’s still going strong in London, it was our favourite restaurant so Braino and I were excited to take a trip down memory lane.
