First Day In London

The flight from Australia to London took about 24 hours. We arrived there fairly refreshed as we had managed a good snooze as the plane passed through about 12 hours of darkness. We were delivered to our hotel in Oxford St Marble Arch about 9 am. We were unable to access our room so we headed out for a look around!

We just seemed to walk and walk! Oxford St is the major street for shopping in London and our hotel was right on the end of it. We had a small "Tesco" (a major supermarket chain) just near the hotel too. This was great for drinks, snacks and other needs.

After leaving Oxford St we walked along New Bond St which is the London home of Tiffany's, Cartier, Gucci, Chanel and all the major upmarket shops. The weather was warm with a top of about 28 degrees and we spotted plenty of sunburnt Londoners! Our next stop was a shop called Fortnum and Mason which sells all sorts of things including chocolates. The photo below shows their chocolate display counter!


Every turn took us to another recognizable place or statue. Here is Trish at Piccadilly Circus. London traffic is best described as horrendous. It is almost as quick to walk when heading to some places! We found a London Tourist Information Office and updated our hotel supplied London Map! We walked past streets such as Pall Mall and Oxford Circus.

We walked on to Trafalgar Square and had a good look round. Our walk back to the hotel took us through Soho and the West End. You just look in amazement at the stage show titles, a newer and better show on each street corner!

We arrived back at the hotel and into our room. Plasma TV, huge bed, couch, big bathroom and an amazing view along Oxford St!

We found an Indian restaurant for our evening meal before collapsing into bed for a sound night's sleep! Prices were a little more expensive than what we would pay at home. Every time you bought something you went through the process of converting back to Australian dollars to get the real value!

We had another 2 full days in London ahead of us before we left for our first bus tour which was of UK and Ireland!