Hughes Family Travels: Day 5: 21,000 Steps

Today was a particularly busy (and enjoyable) day. We started out by going to the Portabello Market, which is a twice weekly street market here in Notting Hill. We went early in an attempt to beat the crowds and we were only partially successful as things really heated up by noon. There are both shops and temporary stands selling virtually everything under the sun, some of it new and some of it "vintage". In fact some people appeared to have dumped out the contents of their grandmother's china cabinet on a table. It was a bit too crowded and we came back to the flat before heading off on our pre-arranged walking tour starting in Covent Garden.

The walking tour was very similar to the tour that Scott and i participated in last year. From Covent Garden we hit the classic London sites including Buckingham Palace, St. James's palace, Westminster and finally Westminster Abbey. We ended at a nice pub for a beer. Our tour guide, Nick, was incredibly knowledgeable about the history and was very good at portraying the stories along the way. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk. Immediately before the start of the tour, we somehow ended up walking up 19 stories from the subways below. It was a great warmup for the walking tour!

Of course, after the 2 and a half hour walk, we weren't done yet! We walked over the Westminster Bridge (site of the recent terror attack) to the site of the London Eye. We still haven't decided on whether to ride the Eye, but we did take a short Thames River boat cruise in order to obtain a different perspective. The tour was excellent (except for the Spanish family sitting directly behind us who, not understanding the commentary, decided to talk at high volume for most of the trip). After that it was a trek to the very impressive Waterloo Station for the subway ride back to Notting Hill.

All in all I logged over 21,000 steps. If you are wondering thats almost exactly 16 kilometers or 10 miles. It felt good to head to bed last night!