London - Days 1&2

Day 1 - Arrived at Heathrow at 6.00. Caught the Underground to Bayswater and left our bags in storage. We then got back on the Underground and travelled to Westminster. Met Tom from London Walks there and went on a 2 hour walking tour of Westminster & the West End. It was great introduction to the city - as James said he was interesting telling us about beheadings, the history of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and history trivia. We saw all the highlights including Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square with no pigeons, Big Ben. The weather is sunny and apparently 10C higher than usual. We then walked through St James Park - flowers are blooming everywhere. We have noticed the traffic seems to be faster and people just walk across the road ... it is nerve-wracking to watch. We then thought we would walk to Harrods to show the kids the shop and enjoyed a 9£ milkshake. Visited the Diana/Dodi shrine. Kept on walking across Hyde Park back to Bayswater where we are staying. Everyone was in the Park - picnicking, throwing balls,sun-baking it didn't feel like a Wednesday afternoon. PS- We are also egg hunting. London has these eggs everywhere as a charity fund-raiser (200) - so far we have found 10 including Humpty Dumpty.
Day 2 - First thing we did was to go on the London Eye- the best views of London and the queue was short. We then went to the Banqueting Hall, where King Charles 2nd was beheaded and Reubens had painted a series of paintings on the ceiling. He was commissioned by James 1 to paint a series depicting the King's (his) greatness. We then walked through Whitehall past Downing Street to the Cabinet War Rooms. This museum was great. The rooms were closed up at the end of WW2 and then reopened in the 1990's. Nothing had been touched - they even found sugar cubes that had been hoarded at the back of a drawer still wrapped up in paper. Churchill and his staff lived in these rooms underground so you see the kitchen, bedrooms, dining room etc. They have the original maps which they planned the various advances on, records of the fatality and injury rates of the doodle-bug rockets and even the blackboard where they recorded their progress getting to Berlin. It seems amazing that battles were planned on a blackboard! Then we visited the Churchill Museum which is adjacent to it - it traces Churchill's life (which was a long time as he lived until he was 90). Well worth visiting. After 2 hours underground we emerged into sunlight and walked to Westminster Abbey and toured the inside. We even visited the gardens as they were open - the kids spent most of their time trying to find famous people. Tomorrow we visit The Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and hope to cruise the Thames.