Day 9: London, England

On Saturday morning, we left Paris to take the Eurostar to London, England. The Eurostar (or Chunnel) is a high-speed train that rides under the English Channel. It was one of the best trains that we rode during our trip. They even served us breakfast. We arrived in London and hit the ground running. We wanted to go to Westminster Abbey first because it would be closed on Easter Sunday. However, when we arrived at Westmister Abbey the line was so long we were not able to go in before it closed for the day. We were able to see the outside of it. We had a 1:00 scheduled ride on the London Eye (the ferris wheel that marks the London skyline). We ate lunch and then headed over to the Eye. We saw several famous sites during the walk, including Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings.

Our London Eye ride was amazing! You can see all over London from the top of the ferris wheel. The ride is exactly 30 minutes long, and you have a scheduled time for riding because you have to get on the ferris wheel while the ride is moving! It was raining (of course!), but we were able to see everything from the ride. I was really excited to see Whitehall, the palace of Henry VIII.

After the London Eye, we went to the National Gallery. One of Jeff's favorite paintings is Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG186). He had been waiting all trip to see this painting. We were also able to see several Picasso works and Van Gogh's Sunflowers among others. A nice touch of the National Gallery is admission is free because the City of London wants the public to enjoy and appreciate art.

During our time in London, the city was working on several subway systems (we assumed in preparation for the Olympics). It was not as easy to get around London as we hoped so we had to do a lot of walking. One of the last few pictures is a picture of me as we walked over the London Bridge. The last picture is a view of the London Bridge at night. We took this picture right behind our hotel so you can see how close we were to the Bridge.