A day full of history: Friday August 8, 2008

After an excellent breakfast buffet this morning that included anything you could possibly imagine, we took the tube to Wimbledon. Here we bought train tickets and switched to a main line train for a twenty minute ride to Hampton Court. We arrived just as it opened and we already had tickets that we had purchased on-line before we left the USA.

I had expected crowds and lines, but the place was nearly deserted. We made a beeline to the Maze, but the operator was late for work and we had to wait about 5 or 10 minutes. The maze was fun, but smaller than I had envisioned and we made only 1 wrong turn and it was over within minutes.

In the palace we joined a costumed guide's tour of the tudor kitchens which was very interesting, but for the rest of the castle, we used individual audio guides which were also free (included with admission). We had to keep one eye on the clock because we have another tour booked at Wimbledon, so reluctantly around Noon, we went to the palace cafe and had lunch and then caught the train back to Wimbledon.

Wimbledon, the tennis club, is actually two stops back the way we had come on the tube at Southfields. From the tube stop we had a 1/2 mile walk until we found the tennis club. Along the way we passed our niece's apartment where we would be going to for dinner after our tour.
Our tour was scheduled for 2:30 and we arrived around 1:45. It took awhile to get the tour paid for because they were having computer problems and then we were able to tour the museum for 30 minutes before our tour. The tour was very interesting and the rain that was threatening only lasted about 5 minutes. The tour is long - 90 minutes - and afterwards we returned to the museum and stayed until it closed at 5pm.

Next we walked the 1/4 mile back down the road to Lisa's apartment. We spent a few hours with her and she served us a delicious dinner. The olympics began in China today so we saw parts of the opening ceremony on the news - very spectacular. The best I can remember seeing.

Finally we returned to our hotel in time to pack up our cases and watch a bit of television. I will be happy to see my kitties again and sleep in my own bed, but I already miss Austria and there are so many things to see in London, but all my time is up.

This has definitely been one of the best vacations we've had. Nothing went wrong, everything exceeded our expectations and the weather, for the most part, cooperated.

The only thing left to do, it decide where to go to next.....