London: A day as a tourist

London is one of my favorite cities. A couple of years ago my husband and I had the chance to take a quick trip. 

Our reasons for going were twofold: One, attend the Chicago Bears game at Tottenham Spurs stadium. Two, catch up with good friends.

Playing tourist

I’m not a good tourist. Throngs of people who don’t know where they’re going. People don’t know what they’re doing and who stop in the middle of everywhere to take endless selfies. Personally, I stand and walk as far to the side of where ever I am as I can so I’m not in the way.

People these days seem to have no regard for anyone around them, only themselves and the space they are in. That’s a whole other topic.

Tours on a double-decker

Yes, we did. Honestly, when I used to travel on my own, the first thing I would do in almost any city was to take a hop-on, hop-off bus tour. It’s a great way to get your bearings and know where things are so you can go back later to see and explore what you want.

This is what I do on tours. I take photos. What did you expect? So here are my images from our first day in London, most of them are from the bus. 

There are a few from walking around. I chose to focus on architecture. I know, another shocker. Why? Because I’d really like to go back to London just for that purpose, to photograph the amazing architecture. 

Old, new, London has it all. Perhaps there will be a See! London photo tour in the future.

The London Eye

Because you have to, don’t you? We did not go for a ride though, I’ve been and Mike wasn’t really interested (we mostly avoid touristy things if we can help it).

Leicester Square

Just wandering around Leicester Square and it was almost overwhelming how many photo opportunities there were. We somewhat wandered aimlessly. It was fun to just observe the sites and stop and listen to the sounds. 

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Park Plaza at Westminster Bridge

This is one building I NEED to go back to explore more for sure!

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No. 1 Blackfriars Road, Bankside

Another really interesting architectural building.

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Random cool buildings in London

I tried in some places during the bus tour to take a shot of a building address, sign or street sign so I could come back and identify a building. No such luck with some of them. (This is a good use of Google Maps and Street View when you get home.)

My way of thinking though is that I’ll just have to go back and find it again.

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St. Paul’s Cathedral

Iconic and classic architecture and bright blue skies just work well together.

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Heading back to our hotel

As we entered one of the tube stations I saw this big puddle at the bottom of one of the stairways. You know I love to play in puddles and get my camera wet. I kind of love how this turned out. 

At the end of the day

We were exhausted. As for the weather, we had sun, blue skies, clouds and rain. This made for a wide variety of images. Even though we weren’t specifically stopping for photography, there are always ways to make it work.