British Isles Explorer Ocean Cruise

Day 2: Wednesday, April 08, 2026 - Travel, and London, England

The day's statistics:
⛅ Weather: low 60s
👟 Steps: Linda 24,171; Steve 25,849
🚌 Miles traveled (approximately): 2,536

At just after midnight ET (probably about 3:00 to 3:30 local) we had a light breakfast of a breakfast burrito, and some coffee. Both had egg and cheese, Linda's also had veggies, and I also had bacon.

We flew near a town that only has a population of 853, less than 0.01% of that of New York.

At 1:56 ET (not local), we landed.
After turning off airplane mode, it was now 6:59.
Linda was able to quickly pass through security with no issue scanning her passport.
I, on the other hand... my passport would not scan. The agent servicing travels informed me that I had to go over to the desk to be reviewed in person by another agent. There were only three in front of me, so it didn't take too long.
Linda was waiting for me on the other side of the security area.
On the way to the underground (what England calls the subway), we stopped by an agent to acquire tickets. She suggested we get just a one day as the airport is in Zone 6 - the furthest out - but were going to spend the next two days in zones 1 and 2. Getting tickets for those closer zones would have been cheaper than getting them now. So the Zone 6 ticket was £23.60 each, versus the £16.60 each for the Zone 1/2. The cards essentially let riders travel as much as they want for the day.
Within a half hour, we were on the underground making our way to the hotel.
We weren't the only ones traveling with our luggage.

We were on the navy blue line - aka the Picadilly Line. We had to transfer to the green line - aka the District Line - somewhere, and I thought it would have been funny to transfer at the Turnham Green station (read it out loud if you have to). Then I saw a note that mentioned "Limited Service", so we abandoned that plan and transferred at the Hammersmith station instead. Admittedly we don't take public transportation often, but I have to say that the underground system is VERY well documented with a lot of information on the platforms, in the stations, and on the trains.

It wasn't until we were already at the next station that I was able to read the map above my head - via a selfie - to see that we probably could have detrained at the Turnham Green station.

Heathrow was WAY out. It took us an hour to get to the Tower Hill station, the nearest to the hotel.
I mapped the hotel using the Google Map tool on the phone, and it was about four blocks away.
I was previously in contact with the hotel about storing our luggage somewhere until we could check-in. But upon arrival, at 9:28, we found out that our room - 302 (our phone area code, so it should be easy to remember) - was already available.

After making our way to the room, we freshened up a bit, and then headed back downstairs.
We stopped by the desk to find out where breakfast would be in the morning. It turned out it wasn't going to be in the restaurant in the corner, but rather the restaurant area in the basement. And it closed in 13 minutes. The hostess asked us for our room number but we said we weren't staying yet and she said we'd have to pay for breakfast. We asked if we could just look around to see what was offered. She let us, but then asked if we wanted to grab something anyway on the way out. We declined and headed into the city.

This was going to be a bit of a challenging day, we knew that. But we had things to see and places to go.
We previously purchased a three-day Go City Pass. This would give us access to over 100 attractions for one price. We certainly weren't expecting to make it to that many in only three days, but we picked out six attractions before hand, all generally within the Tower Hill area.
Our first stop was going to be at the Southwark Cathedral.
The route took us back toward the Tower Hill station, and then past it.
We saw some interesting sights, landmarks, and architecture in the city. Some of these included the Four Seasons Hotel, and the Tower Hill Memorial and garden.




We didn't spend too much time at the Memorial as we had planned on returning to spend some more time as it was so close to the underground station.
We crossed the street and noticed that there was a pedestrian cross-walk sign that had a timer and light for persons in wheelchairs. I guess that makes London "woke"... (yea, I said it.)

The route took us past the Tower of London and Traitor's Gate.
At the River Thames waterfront, we turned to the right and walked along the riverfront a little.
Across the river were the Strand, the HMS Belfast, a mall, and more.
Up river was the London Bridge with an easily recognizable double-decker bus, and the top of the London Eye in the distance to the left.





We found a nice spot to take a selfie too, with the Shard in the background.

This looked like an old fish market or... something like that.

At the end of the riverwalk was an interesting staircase to the London Bridge deck.


At the top of the stairs was the facade of what should have been the Fishmongers Hall.

From the deck, it was easier to get a good picture of the Tower Bridge - probably one of the most recognizable bridges in the world.



We continued across the bridge to the other side of the river.

At the far end of the bridge, we turned right and passed by the Borough Market - a stop we were planning on making later, like, for lunch. At least we now knew where it was.
We kept going and turned right again, and then right again. It was nearly a ten minute walk including down a flight of stairs and completely around the cathedral before we got to the entrance.

Southwark was Anglican, and part of the Church of England.

It was now pretty much time for lunch.
We headed back to the Borough Market. It was very busy. And very large - I only took a couple pictures of it.
There were a LOT of booths selling various items, though most were food related, and prepared / ready-to-eat food at that.
There was, frankly, too many options - if that's possible.






Eventually, we decided to have a light snack-like lunch than a full meal. We were hungry, but not starved. We purchased three different types of dried sausage - regular, hot, and wild boar - and a chunk of cheddar cheese, though we only ate two sausages and about half the cheese as we sat at a couple seats on the outskirts of the Market nearest to the cathedral.


After the brief respite we crossed through the market to the other side, and made our way toward the Tower Bridge - though it was a good fifteen minute walk, not including stopping for our shot glass. Arguably, we cheated on this one as we usually get one per country, but here we decided to just get one for the United Kingdom which includes England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Most of the glasses we saw were London, but we did find one that was for the UK, so we got it.

The trek to the Tower Bridge had us pass a golden arches which gave me the opportunity to get a Big Mac® price check. Here, at £5.69, it costs about $7.52 at the time of this writing.

It was a casual stroll, with a brief rest, as we passed an interesting looking restaurant and a park.



And then we finally arrived at the Tower Bridge. OK, I guess it was more in the shadow of the Tower Bridge.

Before going up to the deck, we made a quick visit to the mechanical room where there were large engines and systems to view that showed what it took to open and close the bridge.



We got a little video of the mechanics running too.

After the mechanical room, we headed up to the deck via a short flight of stairs.

We arrived at the entrance to the South Tower. And there was a line. A long line. We spoke to an employee who informed us that we needed to have a reservation. Oh.. Um, OK. Looks like we're not going up into the tower today.
So we had to cross back to the other side off the Thames to head to our next stop.
Here's proof that we were there. OK, that Linda was there... (And no, that isn't a multimedia "Play" button in the third photo either.)




The nearest underground stop was back at Tower Hill. We made our way there and figured out how to get to our next stop.

Tower Hill provides access to both the District Line (green) and Circle Line (yellow).

We took the Circle Line three stops to Mansion House and we were at the St Paul's station.
It was only a couple blocks to the cathedral, but we were really starting to drag our wagons even though it was "only" 2:30.
I put "coffee near me" in the Google Map® and found there was a café one block away called "Mayas".
We ordered a dark coffee Americano with milk, and went upstairs to wait for the delivery. We played our NYT phone games while enjoying the coffee.
After a little bit of recuperating, we headed over to the cathedral.

There was a small open area with some flowers and a statue near the cathedral with some taking advantage of the fair whether.



I did the best I could to try to get an artsy shot too (the focus IS different - barely - in these two shots).


And where was the entrance to the cathedral? All the way on the other side of it, of course.
We walked all the way around, scanned our Go City Pass - which gave us access to the upstairs and down, and entered.
Right be the door was a small crypt area.


These doors were huge. Above the first bottom row of six panels is the door handle. THAT is how big these doors are.















After the main floor, we headed downstairs to the crypt.
There were quite a few tombs, but we were only interested in a few as we knew those names such as Florence Nightingale, Admiral Lord Nelson, Arthur the Duke of Wellington, and architect Sir Christopher Wren.
We did see some that were interesting looking too.







We returned to the main floor and continued our tour.




















We left the cathedral and headed to the closest underground station - across the street from the far end of the property - in order to make our way to the next stop.


We grabbed a selfie on the way off the property too.

Just before crossing the street - is that an exotic?!!? A $200K Mercedes Roadster or GT, perhaps AMG.

On the corner across the street was the underground stop for the St. Paul's Station. We took the Central Line (red) one stop to the Circle Line (yellow), and that two stops to the Barbican Station.
Some of the tube's escalators are... long.

After exiting, I mapped the next stop and we began our ten minute or so walk.
We arrived at The Chocolate Cocktail Club for a chocotini, courtesy of the Go City Pass - and the day's (and trip's) third use of the Pass.


The "olive" was actually a Rolo® on a toothpick, and the glass "salt" was a dark chocolate syrup. It was REALLY yummy.


The drinks were essentially free (prepaid, perhaps?!!?), so we decided to get a chocolate lava cake to share too.

Time to head back to the Barbican underground station.
We passed this weird red rectangular box that seems to have been repurposed as a library.

Across the way a bit was another side of the fort where the Tower of London is located.

We figured we'd pick up something light - very light - for dinner on the way back to the hotel.
Instead of turning left for one block then turning right to get to the hotel, we went diagonally right and down a block to a market. It was a small market, but we didn't need much for a dinner. We wanted a salad, but all that was available was a pasta salad, so that's what we picked up.
Rather than head back toward the station, we continued on the street the store was on which actually put us in the direction of the hotel. It looked like there was a cross road a little bit down that way, so that's where we headed. But the road only went to the right, we needed to go to the left - so we kept going to the next cross street. That cross street was just a parking lot. Greeeeat.
A lit bit further down we found an alley, and cut across to the hotel street. As expected at this point, we overshot the hotel and had to double-back a little. Less than we would have had we gone the other way.
We finally got back to the room, and changed.
Then we started on the pasta salad. It was sufficient, but not that good (mostly because the pasta was undercooked).

We tried to stay up as long as possible to try to correct for the time zones and compensate for the jetlag.
Bed time was 9:00.

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