Jolly Old London

We drove from Bath into London on Sunday — stopping first at Windsor for the Queen’s official residence at the palace and a peek at Eton College. This was the last we’d have a car, and by the time we finished with two major traffic jams on the M4 and then the Kanye West concert in Hyde Park — we were ok with that. The tube suited us all fine for the three days we rolled around London.

Windsor Palace probably wasn't this sunny and peaceful 500 years ago when Henry VIII was lording about

The staterooms at Windsor were the best that we toured all month -- pity we couldn't snap any pics inside the Queen's residence

First stop on our night tour of London was The Globe for fish and chips. This pub has served everyone from Shakespeare to Sinatra to the Panos' over the past 450 years.

Trafalgar Square was lit up and abuzz on Sunday night

It takes awhile to get used to the London Eye on the skyline -- but we left big fans

You can almost hear Winston Churchill's voice when you get your first look at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben on the Thames

After a great tour of Westminster Abbey -- the ponchos made their first appearance of the month long trip

The ravens still rule the roost at the Tower of London -- but the Crown Jewels always steal the show

Nothing like a huge pot pie to take the edge off. We were lucky to get four seats upstairs in the famous pie room at Newman Arms for lunch.

It didn't happen often, but the skies did clear from time to time

Christopher Wren's beautiful St Paul's Cathedral is too large and wedged into place to easily capture it on camera. This is the best we could do -- and you still can't make out its massive dome.

Our quest to climb every dome and tower in Europe brought us to the top of St Pauls - only to discover a huge storm had rolled in.

Dodging the rain (and even hail) became a preoccupation most of the time in London

While the Roman's left a few interesting artifacts behind from their stay in the UK, the Brits were more than determined to bring back half of Greece to the British Museum

It was an exciting time to be in London -- as the world premier of Harry Potter 6 happened in Leicester Square while we were in town

A Little Night Music was a big hit with the whole family

The early bird gets to watch -- we learned the hard way that you have to get to Buckingham Palace early if you want to actually see the changing of the guard. Our 2nd attempt notched this spot on the fence.

The whole routine took 1/2 an hour and included two marching bands and lots of guys with guns. These two guys are finishing off the guard change while the band played a tribute to Michael Jackson (Beat It)

The London Eye experience was awesome -- and for once we didn't have to climb any steps to see the view.

From 443 feet -- London really comes into view from the Eye

London is such a great cityand we ran ourselves pretty ragged trying to take in just the big sights.  We managed to see plays on two nights — and the whole family enjoyed them tremendously. The Observer was a great drama put on in the National Theatre and Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Little Night Music at the Garrick Theater was a big hit too. Even the kids were still singing show tunes two days later.  London is also the first place where we could really feel the trip starting to wind down to a close — and with Paris in our sights we headed to St Pancras for the train ride across the channel.