Brighton and London Trip-- Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of our Brighton and London trip! If you missed part 1, where I talk about our stay in Brighton, you can read it by clicking here: Brighton and London Trip-- Part 1.

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Jennifer and I arrived in London a little after 9am on March 15th. We wanted to give ourselves the whole day to explore London and visit all of the touristy areas that we missed the first time around. The first thing on our agenda was to take a tour of the Westminster Abbey (which, if you remember back to the post from my first trip to London, was my favorite building in the city).

On the train to London!

The outside of the building was absolutely gorgeous and I was so excited to get to see the inside! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the building so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you it was stunning. Upon entering the abbey, we were given a hand-held audio set that allowed you to walk through the abbey and hear about the history of the different areas by typing in a number on the hand-set that corresponded with numbers set up around the building. Here's a couple of images I found online of the inside of the Abbey, so you can get an idea of what it looked like:

Clockwise, starting from left: The Quire, a window in Poets' Corner, a medieval wall painting in Poets' Corner, Chapter House, and a picture from inside the Abbey during William and Kate's wedding

We ended up spending a couple of hours just wandering through the Abbey. There was so much to see! The Westminster Abbey also holds regular church services and allows free entry during that time. I would love to go to a church service there one day! The Abbey was definitely one of the highlights of the day! Here's a couple more pictures of the cloisters:

Next, we headed over to take some pictures of Big Ben and Parliament near the River Thames! I still can't get over how pretty it is in person! London really is a lovely city!

Because we were missing California and our Mexican food, we decided to scope out Chipotle for lunch. Like always, it was amazing! And I was happily surprised to see that they serve the same huge portions that they do back home, so we left feeling extremely satisfied.

YUMMM!

Look what we saw on our walk to Chipotle! :D

 Next, we wandered over to the London Eye. We knew we could not leave London without taking a ride on the Eye.

Before getting on, we watched a little 4D experience that was very cute. We got onto the Eye just as the sun was going down so the pictures didn't turn out that well, but we did get some pretty good views and I'm so glad we got to do it!

It's hard to see, but Buckingham Palace is in the top left corner behind the gold statue!

Oooh, look at me taking artsy shots

 Afterward, we took some last pictures of Big Ben and Parliament as the sun was setting. Our last stop for the day was Harrods, the big, fancy department store. We took the Tube over there and oh my, was Harrods gorgeous! We didn't have much time to spend there, but just the first couple floors were amazing on their own. You could book a personal shopping experience and the aisles of the store were lined with designer clothes. Jennifer was too scared to touch anything for fear that she would break something and have to pay hundreds of dollars for it. I, on the other hand, walked through there with my hands outstretched, touching everything in sight! In Harrods, there was a fancy cafeteria area, a champagne bar, and a chocolate cafe!

The Chocolate Cafe

The English have an obsession with giant chocolate eggs... get with the program, America!

 My absolute favorite part of Harrods would have to be the toy store. It. was. HUGE! They sold life-size stuffed animals, gorgeous rocking horses and doll prams, and the doll houses were actually doll mansions! If I were a little girl, I would have had a field day in that store. Even at 21 years old, I was still really excited walking through and gawking at the toys. It was seriously an amazing store!

Can we just take a look at this "doll house" for a minute? It has 12 rooms. 12 ROOMS. I think I'd like to turn myself into a doll so I can live in there.

If you are ever in London, a visit to Harrods is a must! After Harrods, we took the Tube back to the train station and headed back to Leeds!

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I've just gotten back from doing some Spring Break traveling and I cannot wait to show you guys the pictures! I'd like to have my next blog post up soon. First on the list is Scotland! :D