Europe 2016...first stop London, Day Three!

We met up in the lobby pretty early for another big day.  We had lots to see in this city and only a few days to do it so we made the most of every minute.  First stop, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  We weren't sure exactly how to get there and ended up walking...a lot!  But...it was a great walk and we saw some neat things including this very cool, skinny building below as well as St. Paul's Cathedral, and the bridge made famous in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

This building above is called The Shard because it looks like a shard of glass at the top.  It is Joe's favorite building in London.  He loves skyscrapers.  Below is an example of the gum art on the Millenium Bridge (aka Harry Potter bridge).  Someone has gone along and painted the gum droppings all over this bridge. Each one is unique and so fun to try to find. 

We took a tour of the Globe Theatre, it is really cool.  It is obviously not the original but is built to be as close as they could get to the original.  We learned so much from our tour guide about the history of the theatre and theatre in general in London during Shakespeare's time.  If we ever make it to London again, I would love to see a show here.  The tickets are very reasonably priced. 

After our tour we set off on another long walk to try to find another of our favorite restaurants, "Hung, Drawn, and Quartered."  Our walk took us across London Bridge which was neat.  We accidentally found the restaurant and had a perfect British lunch--meat pies and chips. 

After leaving here we went to Westminster Abbey.  I have no pictures from there because you aren't supposed to take pictures.  We all loved Westminster Abbey and Joe even conquered his fear of walking on dead people (graves) because you can barely walk in there without walking on tombs.  So many famous people are buried there and some of the tombs/graves (not sure what to call them) are so elaborate and ornate.  I especially enjoyed Poet's Corner where all sorts of famous authors are buried and many others have memorials.  CS Lewis has a memorial there which was cool to see.  After our tour we had planned to go to a service there but we had an hour of downtime at the hotel and then couldn't bring ourselves to go back.  Instead we went to dinner at Coloseo (another favorite, this time Italian) and then Cheryl, the kids, and I went for an evening walk through St. James Park, Green Park, and Hyde Park.  We followed a "Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk" all the way to a big memorial to her only to find it locked up and closed.  Oh well...it was a beautiful walk!

As we were leaving Green Park and headed into Hyde Park we came across all of these roller skaters.  They met up and then took off together for a big roller derby.  :0)  We were all highly amused. 

Because there was still a little time left in the day when we finished our walk, we went to Piccadilly Circus (sort of like Times Square in NY) and looked at the lights, bought a whole box of Magnum ice cream bars and then finally made our way home and to bed!