Wednesday 16th July - High speed train, underground and The Tower of London

Tower Day:

Woke up very early - just on daylight, but I was able to tidy up a few loose ends. Julia and I were able to book the tickets for the Tower on-line so that hopefully we didn't have to join a queue when we got there.

We got pretty detailed instructions about the trains: catch the high speed train from Sittingbourne to King's Cross/St. Pancreas using our British Rail Flexi Pass. Then catch the yellow Circle Line tube to Tower Hill using an "Oyster" card. The question was; would it all work with us in charge?

Off we went, delivered by Julia in her car to Sittingbourne station. The ticket man didn't turn a hair at our Flexi-Pass tickets and assured us that they would work on other rail companies, like London to Edinburgh, besides "Southeast" which was what we were going to do today so long as we did no more than three days in 2 months!

The train looked pretty flash when it slid up to the platform - more like a bullet than an engine.

It is amazing how quiet they are. It covered the distance to London in about an hour exactly and fairly spun along. It was a smooth and spookily quiet ride.

When we got to King's Cross I was impressed by the roof of the thing -  a lattice work of girders supporting a roof that let in plenty of natural light. We found our way to St.Pancreas for the tube to Tower Hill. We booked our ticket to Edinburgh for Monday morning. It was all rather easy!

The signage for the tube was good although we had worked out beforehand which one to catch. The colour coding and diagrams worked well, but we did have to check a few times with the staff and passengers to make sure that we were on the right track.

We got off safely at Tower Hill and decided that we needed something to eat. Finally after walking around the neighbourhood we found a really  sandwich bar called "Pret a Manger" - cost us 8 pounds for 6 sandwiches and an apple juice.

The problem was finding somewhere shady to eat it. We found Trinity gardens not far away, but it was packed so in the end we just had to sit on the grass in the sun which was warming to hot!

Tower guard

Our on-line tickets to the tower worked well and we joined the queue for the Beefeater guide.
The heat and the very large group - about 50 in ours - got to us in the end so after half an hour we peeled off and did our own thing.

An actual guard

Knight in armour

The Beefeater

Raven

Knight in armour

Feeling pretty hot and a bit tired we made our back to St. Pancreas, topped up the Oyster cards with 10 pounds each for the next people and we were off back to Sittingbourne and Julia waiting in the car.