Day 6, June 3 - Time to be a tourist!

We've been doing a lot of local things since we got to London, so we were finally ready to dip our feet into the tourist pool. We purchased something called the London Pass, which you pay a fee to use a certain amount of days. You can do one day, two days, three days, and six days (we chose the 3-day pass). With this, you can get in to over 60 attractions in London, without having to pay at the door, and skip the lines! We LOVE it so far. We bought something similar for Paris, so hopefully it will work wonders there as well. The first place we decided to use the pass on was Westminster Abbey. We skipped the lines and walked right in. It also came with a free audio guide, which was narrated by the intoxicating Jeremy Irons. I didn't realize you couldn't take pictures inside the Abbey, so I have several pictures (until someone scolded me later on) up to a certain point. 

                     

The place is HUGE. It is just so grandiose and so intricately detailed in even the smallest things. We learned so much about it, I don't even know where to begin. So many monarchs and honored people at buried here. It was just so awe-inspiring just to be there; it's indescribable. After the Abbey, we walked through the nearby St. James Park and had lunch at Inn the Park. Once we finished, we walked through the rest of the park and approached Buckingham Palace. We weren't able to witness the Changing of the Guard, but it was still amazing just to be there. 

    

Next on our agenda was to walk back up the Mall, past Bug Ben, across the Thames River, and went by St. Thomas' Hospital to go visit the Florence Nightingale Museum! The nurse part of me was freaking out with excitement. It was a small museum, but definitely worth seeing if any nurse gets a chance to. We then took a bus on over to London Bridge to do the London Bridge Experience. When we walked in, it was super dark. There were two main parts to it. The first part was full of actors who dressed up and made it scary and explained the history of the bridge while this is happening, you are with a group of people. The second part is actually a haunted house. Apparently it is considerd the scariest attraction in all of London (which is not my cup of tea, but I did it for the fiancé) it consisted of a story with Jack the Ripper involved and murders and gory scenes. Once I conquered that fiasco, we went over to the Tower Bridge to check out its interior and history. Such a beautiful bridge and how it came to be. We even were able to catch it opening up for boats to go through. 

     

Once we trekked through the bridge attraction, we visited the engine rooms on how the drawbridge works. After finishing that, we decided to call it a day, and had dinner at the flat and played board games til we were ready for bed.