Today was our day in London.. We caught a train for our hotel town of Waybridge to Waterloo Station.  

Our first stop was the London Eye. That is the huge ferris wheel. We considered riding it but it was $60 and it would have taken over an hour to go around once. It has 32 cabins and it never stops. People get on and off as it is moving. It moved very slowly. It is really an amazing structure. It is like a large bicycle wheel with cables in tension forming the spokes. It is supported only on one side. The wind was really blowing but it didn’t seem to be swaying.

We then walked over the Golden Jubilee foot bridge to Trafagler Square. We had a croissant, cappuccino and a hot chocolate in a small cafe. We then walked around the square, the National Museum. 

We walked down Whitehall Street to the Westminster Abbey, the parliament and Big Ben. We had a real relaxing walk, stopping often to just watch the activity around us. 

We then caught the train back to our hotel. We have had a great vacation but, as it always is, we have had enough and we are ready to get home to our friends, our puppy dog and the warmth of Tucson. We will be up early tomorrow as we have to be the Heathrow airport at 7:30 am.

It was raining when we left this morning but that was not to last long. It would rain for awhile, then the sun would shine and then it would rain again. We headed 50 miles east to Brighton. Just north of there we found six towns that had once had people from my past. They were Hickstoad, Twineham, Bolney, Cuckfield, Cowsold and Wivelsfield. Sound familiar. Five of the six had old churches that were there when my ancestors where there. At one we met an old woman that was the church warden. She knew all about the area, the church and the graveyard. Like most people here she had a nice dog. We miss Maisy.

Then we headed to the Ace Café. It has been an internationally known British biker hang out for over 50 years. It was worth the drive but what a drive. It is nine miles west of London and my GPS said we had 58 miles to get there. 

You have never seen bad traffic until you have seen London traffic. A lot of stop, and stop again, and then go slowly. We made it there, hung around for awhile, bought and Ace Café hat and then headed south again to Weybridge again in stop and go traffic. Our hotel for the last two nights is here.