Alison found us a great apartment to rent in the Chalk Farm neighborhood. It was the top one in this building but you can't really see it (on the fourth floor) from the street.
It was three flights up! Worth it!
It had a great balcony including a couple of bird-scaring owl statues.
View from our flat at sunset. That's the Shard blindingly reflecting the setting sun. On the far right of the picture you can make out the outline of the London Eye Ferris wheel.
It was a good neighborhood for walking. They even warned about watching out for slow children.
Down the street our flat was on there were a few little restaurants, including this nice pub. As you can see, Cielo chose the mussels again.
And this fish and chips place.
One day out was focused on the Tower of London. After we went in, we were walking on top of the north wall and saw London Bridge opening up for a passing ship.
We took the free tour by one of the Tower's Yeoman Warders. They acutally live with their families at the Tower itself (our guide didn't go into the day care options available). They have to have served 22 years in the armed forces, and 15 years without a demerit. The current warders have served in the Falklands, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. We assume they're all approximately as funny as our guide was (which was pretty funny).
Answer: He visited the Tower of London in 1805-1806 and is the namesake of Alison's residential college at Yale. Question: Who is Benjamin Silliman?
The White Tower still has a great collection of arms and armor on display. Cielo naturally gravitated to the horse armor.
This dragon sculpture felt a little anachronistic, but was still fun.
At the Byward Tower.
Eero pretending this child-sized armor was made for him.
Time for a Tower of London selfie.
We went to Westminster Square on a Saturday and quickly ruled out the Abbey and Parliament based solely on the enormous crowds. But we did make our way down to the Thames for a cruise to Greenwich!
The ship on the river taking us to Greenwich. Eero is trying to decide ... something.
The Cutty Sark is dry docked at Greenwich and has been turned into a museum.
Among other things, you can try to sail the Cutty Sark from Australia back to London. If you don't go east from Australia you'll never make it!
Of course if you go to Greenwich, you have to straddle the Greenwich Meridien. Same 0 degrees of longitude we stood at in Spain!
The Observatory itself was putting on a Steampunk show. This is the "Orrery Dress" created by Jema Hewitt, one of the artists invited to contribute to the show.
All of the designs were fantasy - this is a station designed to orbit high above the earth like a crazy lighthouse. The detail on the model was great.
It was actually the Summer Solstice the day we were there. That plus the fantastic weather led to a lot of people on the green, sunbathing, playing soccer and picnicking. This view is from the top of the walkway that leads up to the Observatory.
It was a hot day at the Observatory, so a little ice cream was totally in order. Pretty much everywhere we went the weather as about as good as it could be.
The boat on the way back to Westminster Pier - it was a long day.
