Our First Day in London

We left Creston after work Friday Sept. 28, drove to Cranbrook and caught a flight to Calgary. Our flight to Heathrow in London was suppose to about an hour after we arrived. But boarding was delay for about an hour, once on board the maintenance crew fixed what ever was the problem, then there was a passenger missing. So either they would have to find him or they would have to take his bags off the plane so this was even more of a delay. The missing guy finally arrived, the crew went to close the door and it wouldn't close !

So maintenance was called again, the door was off it's track, and they mostly got it closed but it was out of alignment. The maintenance manual had to be consulted to see if the door alignment was too far out for us to fly.... well after sitting on the plane at the gate for 2 hours it was decided that the door couldn't be fixed and we just had to wait for customer service representatives to meet us at the gate to let us know what would be happening next. Since Scott and I were close to the front we got off the plane somewhat first, found out they were putting a new flight for everyone the next day at 3 pm and we could pick up our luggage and get a hotel/taxi voucher from the ticket agent. We got a free night at the Delta Airport Hotel (by the time we got to the hotel it was 1 in the morning) and a "free" breakfast (the buffet was 16$ a person and we got 10$ each for breakfast from Air Canada). Saturday the 29th of September we were suppose to already be in London, but since our flight didn't leave until 3 pm we called a friend in Calgary and went to lunch together.

So after a 17 hour delay in Calgary we finally got on our flight to London. We arrived in London at 7 am Sunday 30th. After an 8 hour flight, and the time change and going through 45 minutes of customs at Heathrow we caught a train to Paddington Station where we walked the 5 minutes to our hotel the Normandie.

Our hotel the Normandie (these are all old Victorian homes converted to hotels)

The view from our room on the top floor

The stairs were sooooo.... steep. I am standing on one floor and Scott is on the landing to the next floor. There was 70 steps from where we had breakfast in the morning to our room on the top floor. I am pretty sure that the hotel owners waited till we arrived, looked us over, figured we were young and gave us the top floor room.

After arriving at the hotel, we still had a room since we didn't arrive the day before. We had a shower, changed our clothes and decided to walk around a bit to see the sights and stay awake.

Our hotel was only about a 5-10 minute walk from the north part of Hyde park, this is a cottage on the edge of Hyde park (see map attached at end of post) where we always entered Hyde Park at.

A view of Hyde Park looking east

We walk on The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk to the memorial fountain

A view of Hyde Park from the Memorial Fountain

From Hyde Park we walked along Green Park to Buckingham Palace

We didn't plan it, but we happen to stumble across the Changing of the Guard. They had the whole musical ride going on with the marching band and horses

We walked along St. James Park to the Parliament building and Big Ben

From Big Ben we walked up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square

Then we walked to Piccadilly Circus then back to our hotel near Paddington Station


A couple of city views as we walked back to our hotel

This map didn't turn out as good as I hoped. But in the middle left is a dark area circled that is Paddington Station and to the right of it is a purple X that is our Hotel. the green is the path we took, from the north part of Hype Park to the south then to the east towards the lake (that is where the Memorial fountain is then along Hyde park east to the first purple circle (bottom middle) Buckingham Palace the to Big Ben (the purple circle farthest right). Then up to the next circle (Trafalgar Square) then up and to the left to Piccadilly Circle then left back to Hyde Park along the lake and back to our Hotel.

It was such a beautiful day and there was so much to see we just kept walking, at the end of the day we measured how far we went and it was about 10 km. We also bought Oyster Cards that afternoon, near Piccadilly so we could ride the buses and tube for a week with unlimited rides. We definitely used this card for the rest of our time in London.

After getting back to the hotel we asked where a good place for dinner would be and we were directed to a Pub just down the street called the Monkey Puzzle (it had a monkey puzzle tree in the front garden area). Scott got to have a few pints of ales and we had a good BBQ dinner and were in bed by 10 pm.