The Chunnel, London, And Stonehenge ... Another Great Adventure!

How do you top a couple of days in Paris? How about a trip to London, England? I haven't been to England yet, so this is pretty cool. My favorite part? Riding in the Chunnel. The Chunnel is the tunnel from France to England, and it runs under the English Channel. How cool is that? We drove from Belgium to the Netherlands, boarded a tour bus, rode back to Belgium and on to France. Somehow they cleared us through customs, and the excitement began...

You have to board a train to travel through the Chunnel. I thought there might be one or two of them, but I had no idea how many trains and tracks there really were. It's amazing!

The top of one end of the train slowly slid back to reveal a large opening, and then our bus (and MANY others) slowly began to drive on board the train.

We just followed along after the other bus, driving inside the train, until we reached our proper section. Then the walls of the train slid shut between each of the vehicles on the train, sectioning them all off individually. The driver turned the motor off and we were free to get out and look around a little bit.

By the way, if you take any pictures inside the Chunnel, be sure to turn off your flash. I understand things get pretty ugly if your flash goes off, because it signals the security cameras that there is a fire, so the train stops, alarms go off, and ...well...it would not be a good thing. Do you really want to be trapped under the English Channel and have everyone mad at you? No.

About 30 minutes later, we emerged at the other end of the Chunnel... in ENGLAND!

A couple of hours later, and we were in the lovely city of London. The wet city of London. After spending a quick night in the hotel, we were off to explore the city. Every soggy inch of it. We booked a hop on/ hop off tour bus called The Original London Sightseeing Tour, and it was fantastic. It's the easiest way to travel across the city, and the tour guides not only have lots of great information for you, they are also tons of fun. We had a blast just listening to their stories and jokes. (Even in the pouring rain! Two thumbs up to these great guys!)

This is St. Paul's Cathedral. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and he supervised it's building from across the river. The Cathedral took 35 years to complete.

This is where the real magic happens. It's the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange.

Ahhhh. Our first glimpse of the Tower Bridge. Some people actually think this is the London Bridge, but that one is a little farther down the Thames River, and is very simple.

Now we can say we've actually ridden over the Tower Bridge in London. How cool is that?

Just past the bridge is the Tower of London. It's been a fortress, palace, home of the Crown Jewels, prison, mint, arsenal, and quite a few other things during the over 900 years it's been around.

This is St. James' Palace, one of the Royal residences. Some of the Royal family still live here today.

The Wellington Arch dates back to the 1820's. It is next door to Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington.

This gate was a gift to Queen Elizabeth.

The Marble Arch was designed by John Nash in 1827, based on the Arch of Constantine in Rome. It resided outside of Buckingham Palace, but the Queen wanted it moved. The city disagreed. She then had a new carriage made that was too wide to fit through the Arch. That simply wouldn't do, so the Arch was moved to it's present place in 1851.

We even stalked a few famous residence. These townhouses are the homes of Joan Collins (on the left) and J.K. Rollins (on the right). Surprisingly, they did not invite us in for tea.

This is the closest picture I got of Buckingham Palace. It's just on the left. When we walked up to the gate, the bottom dropped out of the clouds, and we were drenched. We ran back to take cover in a building until we could get back on our tour bus. Later, the sun came back out, but had lost our desire to fight the crowds of a peek. Sadness.

Here is our first glimpse of the Houses of Parliament. And there's even a peek of blue skies coming out!

Pictures don't do it justice. It's huge!

You also get a view of the tower that houses the famous Big Ben bell.

I know. I overdid it with picture of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, but the sun finally came out and I was a little overwhelmed.

Isn't it pretty?

It's the London Eye!

And it's raining again. But it's OK. The price of our bus tour also included a boat tour along the Thames River, so we decided to check that out. It, too, was lots of fun, and their tour guides were a blast. The roof of the boat slid shut over us when it started to rain, and then open again when it cleared up.

Here's what the tour boat looks like, with it's retractable roof.

That round building in the center is Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It's not the original, but it's an exact replica.

Our boat went right up to the Tower Bridge, so we got an awesome view of it from this angle.

We also got a great view of the Tower of London. This is where they used to bring in the prisoners. Kind of creepy.

Here's some Harry Potter trivia for you. The Bridge on the right is in one of the movies, and Daniel Radcliffe attended the school on the left.

Soon, we were done with our boat ride and headed back to the dock. Then... off on the bus again.

Look! Blue skies and sunshine again! Yay!

I had to take a picture of a red phone booth. It's the law.

Apparently this is the place to be seen on a Saturday night.

A Harry Potter Ad.... on a double decker red bus... in London. Is that cool, or what?

The Museum of Natural History was packing them in, as well. Very cool building!

Love the taxi cabs here. They are so cute! Whew. We've been all over the city, and we were pooped. Off to the hotel for more sleep. We have another adventure planned for the next day!

We boarded our bus bright and early on Sunday and headed off for Stonehenge. I really never thought I'd ever get a change to see this, so I was pretty excited. Grandma and Nana were, too. Russ and the kids were more like... "Um, it's rocks." They just didn't get it. We drove for about two hours, and ended up in the middle of the country side. There were fields and sheep everywhere. And right in the middle of it all... was Stonehenge. I didn't know quite what to expect, but it was pretty great. These stones have been here, in this position, since around 2300 B. C. If you want to learn more about the history and construction of Stonehenge, then be sure to check out their site. You can't walk up to the stones any more, but you can go around the formation and check it out from all sides. Your admission price includes the use of a little audio device that gives you some great facts about how it was constructed and what it means. Soon, we were heading back to London and our hotel. Monday morning meant it was time to head back home. We drove the couple of hours back to the Chunnel, and stopped at their center for a quick lunch before we boarded the train. It's a good thing they had this sign. We never would have made it out of England without it. Now I know where France is. We got in line for our return trip on the Chunnel, boarded the train, and returned to the main land of Europe. After a long bus ride, we were home once again. We can now mark London off of our To Do list. On to other adventures.