Excellent and Endless Sightseeing Options within London

Chuck was on a layover so we were able to enjoy an afternoon together; the London Eye is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with over 3.75 million visitors annually

In 1848 two Englishmen patented their iron girders which were used to construct the Joiner Street Bridge; most of the bridge is now encased in brick with Joiner Street being pedestrianized through the London Bridge Station

Parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye; there are 32 10 ton capsules which each hold up to 25 people; you ride only one revolution which takes about 30 minutes

View of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge from the Tate Modern; admission to the museum is free but the special exhibitions carry a hefty admission price

The Churchill War Rooms offered a fascinating walk through the underground headquarters of the British government's WW2 efforts; the included audioguide provided tons of information

Our tour through the state rooms at Buckingham Palace was just jaw-dropping; we didn't see all 775 rooms, but the ones we saw were full of art masterpieces, hand-cut crystal chandeliers, exquisite furniture and lots of royal touches

The ceiling of the Banqueting House was painted by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; commissioned by Charles I to celebrate his father, the ceiling portrays James I's peaceful reign and the union of the Scottish and English crowns

The Shard from the London Eye; the standard ticket costs 30 pounds and Chuck and I waited in line about 30 minutes on a Saturday

A statue of Isaac Newton greets visitors to the British Library; it houses some of the most valuable manuscripts in the world including two 1215 copies of the Magna Carta

The Greek Revival façade of the British Museum has 44 columns in the Ionic order 14 meters high, closely based on those of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene in Turkey

The Portobello Road Market is the world’s largest antiques market with 1,000+ dealers selling every kind of antique and collectible; we were there accidentally trying to find lunch for Lee

The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture, housing a permanent collection of more than 2.27 million objects

The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints, drawings and photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world

We took an informative, guided tour through Royal Albert Hall; we got to listen to the rehearsal for the evening concert of Rochmaninov's Symphony Number 2 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra

The Gothic Revival Albert Memorial, directly north of the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gardens, was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband who died in 1861

Queen Victoria married a 20 year old cousin who then became Prince Albert; after Prince Albert died of typhoid at the age of 42 Queen Victoria wore only black for the rest of her life

Despite the impending uncertainty with Brexit, there seemed to be endless construction underway as illustrated by hundreds of cranes; Boris Johnson was mayor of London from 2008-2016

Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park was packed with kids trying to escape the warm temperatures; the park is known for holding large-scale free rock music concerts, featuring groups such as Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Queen

Horse Guards Parade hosted beach volleyball at the 2012 Summer Olympics; the rear garden wall of 10 Downing Street (the official residence of the British Prime Minister) abuts Horse Guards Parade

As part of the Churchill War Rooms, there is a Churchill Museum which covered his entire life; Churchill was quite an accomplished painter and also won the Nobel prize for literature for his stirring oratory

The Canary Wharf area is a big financial center; London has been called the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, most popular for work, and the most vegetarian-friendly city in the world

The current Houses of Parliament date from 1876 after fire in 1834 destroyed the old palace; today it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and we took an informative 2 hour tour of the buildings

This contemporary light sculpture in Westminster Hall contains hand-blown glass scrolls that are lit as the River Thames approaches high tide; the lighting changes every 30 seconds

Lee decided the London Eye was too expensive given we had plenty to see using our London Pass; the London Eye has been reproduced in many other cities including Stratford, Cardiff and even Myrtle Beach

The Museum of Brands was crammed full of old British products and advertising; it was quite interesting and better than I expected but no photos were allowed

The Victoria Tower is at the southwest end of the Palace of Westminster and is slightly taller than the tower on the other end, popularly known as Big Ben; Big Ben is currently shrouded by scaffolding as it undergoes a multi-year restoration

The Wellcome Collection opened in 2007 and displays a mixture of medical artifacts and original artworks exploring ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art; it was free

Sir Henry Wellcome founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge to form GlaxoSmithKline

The largest collection of Merchant Navy figureheads in the world is aboard the Cutty Sark; the Brits are all super friendly and so polite

The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London which includes lots of paintings of the city as well as maps and other historical artifacts; another free museum!

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, in the Guildhall Art Gallery, is by American John Singleton Copley; the siege was an unsuccessful attempt by Spain and France to capture Gibraltar from the British during the American Revolution

Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837; a German bomb destroyed the palace chapel during WW2 with the Queen's Gallery built where the chapel had been

Buckingham Palace from the London Eye; it used to offer the highest public viewing point in London until it was superseded by the 245 m observation deck on the 72nd floor of The Shard, which opened to the public in February 2013