In and Around London

From the 12^th of June to the 20^th of June we were in London.  For the first 4 nights we were in a Travel Lodge hotel in Kingston and the last 4 nights we were in Wimbledon at a friend’s house.

We went to;

- The Tower Bridge

- Tower of London

- Lego Land Windsor

- Buckingham Palace

- Natural History Museum

- Windsor Castle

- Stratford – upon – Avon (the town of Shakespear’s birthplace and where he died)

- Houses of Parliment

- Bourton-on-the-Water

The Tower Bridge:
Tower bridge is a very elegant bridge that was built in 1894.
It is a special bridge because it opens up when a big boat needs to come through!  There are also 2 small foot bridges above the one that cars and pedestrians can use.
Once the boats are through they can't go any further!

Tower Bidge as a tall ship goes under.

Buckingham Palace:

This is one of three of the Queen's residences, the others are Windsor Castle and Balmoral Castle

Whenever the Queen is home the British flag is raised.

Buckingham Palace is 208 years old!  It has 775 rooms, only 19 of which are open to the public, that means  756 are private!!!

Buckingham Palace

This is me pretending to be a Welsh Guard outside Buckingham Palace!

Tower of London:

William the Conqueror replaced an earth and timber castle with the White Tower in 1080!
The tower was used as a royal residence.  Twenty  years after it was built they kept prisoners and animals such as lions monkeys and Polar bears!  The prisoners were kept in the dungeons then they got executed.


Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) are guards that have served in the Military for at least 22 years and have been awarded medals.  They live in the tower houses and give tours of the Tower of London.

The Beefeater that gave us a tour.

A Welsh guard

Beef-eaters.

Actors dressed up as people from the 1800's

Legoland Windsor:


Legoland Windsor was opened in 1996 in Windsor on the block of a Windsor Safari Park.  It is a big theme park filled with lego statues and rides, some of the rides involve you getting drenched and some are for you to look at the Lego statues.  The fun park is aimed for children 3-12.  It is obviously very popular because it is the 2nd most visited theme park in the UK!

This is one of the many huge statues!

Lego or real?

Do these look familiar from my last post of my canal trip? 
This is the model town which is all made of Lego!

These are the Welsh Guards outside Buckingham Palace in the model village.

Here are some Beefeaters!

Have you seen my new friends?

Bourton-on-the-Water:


This village is an exact replica of the actual town! It is made out of tiny bricks and roof tiles and everything that you would use for a real house!  My dad use to come here when he was little.  

This is the sign to the model Village in Bourton-on-the-Water.

This is a picture of the real town, the model town and the model town of the model town!

I had a fantastic time in London!


To find out more about the different places visit
Tower of London-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London
Tower Bridge-http://www.touruk.co.uk/london_bridges/tower_bridge1.htm
Buckingham Palace-http://www.tourist-information-uk.com/buckingham-palace.htm

Canal Boat Holiday

For the next two months we will be moving between England and Wales.
From the 30th of May to the 6th I was on a canal boat. I went with Mum, Dad, Gabby, Amelia, Nicola, Kevan, Sophie, Helena and Huw. Nanny and Grandpa also came but they were on a separate boat. The boats names are 'Rowdyke' and 'Duke' I was on 'Rowdyke'.

Canal boats were originally used for moving materials such as coal, now they are used as houseboats and for holidays for people to enjoy the canals and scenery.

As each boat has a name. Lots of them are names of people. Here are some of the names!

Patricia

Bella

Helena

Amelia

We went from Rugby to Banbury, on the Oxford Canal. That route is about 78 miles long which is 126 kilometres.
By the way you are probably thinking that a canal boat would do that in much less than a week because you would have thought that it goes a little faster than 4 miles an hour (6.4 kilometres an hour)!!!
The longest time I steered for in one go was an hour and a half.

We stopped at a few places; Aynho, Banbury, Fenny Compton, Cropredy and Napton.  My favourite was Aynho.

This is the boat plan of Rowdyke:

When you go up or down a hill on the boat you have to go through locks.If you are going up-hill you go into the lock and then fill it by winding the cranks. Once the lock is full you open the doors and drive through.

The gates of the lock.

The two levels of the Canal.

The crank that you wind either to let the water in or out of the lock.

There was loads of animals around the canals. The animals, I saw were:
rabbits, brown hare, red squirrel, mallard and shovelers with ducklings, moorhen, mute swans with signets, hedgehog, red deer, pigeons, horses, ponies, sheep, pigs, chickens with chicks, geese, dogs.

Pony and it's foal

Ducklings with their Mother

Swans and their signets

Piglets

Duckling that is only one day old

Some other photos I took on the boat

There were lots of different birds along the canals.

A cottage in Aynho

Luckily this boat wasn't ours!!

The map below shows where I have been so far:

Next week we will be going to see the sights of London and also to visit friends.