Well, here we are – the last full day of this trip. I mean, as you know, the trip is actually already over and I’ve been home for a week. But travel back with me, if you will, to last week when I still had one more full day in London to enjoy. 🙂

WE GET IT, JEFF! YOU STARTED THE DAY WITH A WALK!

Why yes, I did start my day with a walk! But don’t worry because I didn’t take any photos on that walk. With it being my third day in a row of walking the same(ish) path, I didn’t find much new to take photos of. But rest assured that it was another enjoyable five miles with more cooperative weather. Huzzah! Plenty of doggos in the park, lots of people enjoying the day, and plenty of good vibes from my favorite city. And did I follow up that walk with one last delish breakfast at my hotel? I certainly did! My planned departure from the hotel on Friday was going to be so early that I knew I wouldn’t get to eat beforehand, so I may have had an extra piece of bacon this time to make up for that. Bliss!

For this last day, the only the we had planned was a final dinner with our group of five (and we didn’t even plan that until later in the morning!) and within the group, a few people had some plans of their own, which I had no problem with. Traveling with friends on this trip worked out well as we had plenty of time to do stuff together (our Hidden London tour, train rides to/from Wales, the Twinings masterclass, the Paul McCartney photo exhibit, etc.) and we also got to do stuff on our own or in smaller groups. When I come to the UK, I’m often flying solo and not accountable to anyone else, so I honestly wasn’t sure how it would work being here for a week with several friends, but it worked out fine! And today, I ended up splitting off with Bill while the rest of our friends did their own stuff. And what did we get up to? The only thing I said that I HAD to do was pay a visit to Tower Bridge. As I’ve said on probably every London trip, Tower Bridge is my favorite view in the city, so even if I’m not going to be around it for some other reason, I’ll always make time to stop by just to get a photo. Oh, and also to get an ice cream cone. Have I mentioned that there’s always an ice cream truck or two in the area? Thankfully Bill was up for it, so away we went!

For whatever reason, I feel like the trip to Tower Hill station is always a bit of a long one, but maybe because we could hop on the right line from Gloucester Road, that didn’t seem to be the case this time. There were plenty of people in the area when we arrived, which is never surprising. Tourists, students on school trips, and lots of other folks are always around the bridge (and the Tower of London, which is also right there), but it wasn’t too crowded, thankfully. I immediately made my desire for an ice cream cone known (don’t judge how close that ice cream cone came to breakfast – I hear your eyes rolling) and Bill likewise made his desire for a burger from one of the food trucks known, so we each got a lil’ treat! Well, I got a treat and Bill got a meal as he hadn’t yet eaten breakfast. Fair enough! Don’t worry though – we did also get my required photos of the bridge! Interestingly though, the bridge opened to let a tall boat through while we were there, which is very normal, but then the bridge…stayed open. Like, for awhile. I mean, it was long enough that we worried about whether it was going to close in time for us to cross it! Our fears about that proved to be unfounded though, but more on that after a brief photo interlude.

A selfie on my own plus one with Bill. I may have waited until the last day of my trip to get my required Tower Bridge selfie, but the important thing is that I got it. 🙂

Next up was actually CROSSING that big ol’ bridge. The whole issue with it still being open was…problematic, mostly because we needed it to be back together in order to cross it (the path to pedestrians is closed when the bridge opens like that) and getting where we wanted to go next via another route would have been WAY more work than it was worth, so after wondering if it was going to happen, I decided we should just walk toward the bridge and hope for the best. Thankfully, the best came to pass as the bridge, which had been ever so slowly closing as we walked closer to it, was just about back together by the time we got to the pedestrian crossing on it. We only had to wait a few minutes more and then all the backed-up pedestrians and traffic starting moving. Hooray!

So why did we need to walk across the bridge anyway? Why, for some Doctor Who geekery, of course! Bill had the good idea to visit a couple of locations used for filming in Doctor Who – Butler’s Wharf and Shad Thames. They’re just over Tower Bridge and are right next to each other and were both used as locations in the 1984 Doctor Who story Resurrection of the Daleks, which is a favorite story of mine from my favorite era of the show. So needless to say, I was happy to visit when Bill suggested it! In fairness, there wasn’t a lot for us to do, other than meander around and shoot some photos, so that’s exactly what we did. And now you can see them, too!

The area has been refurbished somewhat in the last 40 years, but it’s still got the same distinctive look from when it was in Doctor Who.

These photos are from Butler’s Wharf. The photo on the right is specifically framed to mimic a scene in which the TARDIS materialized, which you can see from the episode here.

With our Doctor Who appetite satiated, Bill had another good idea, but this one was to scratch a different nerdy itch. As I’ve mentioned before, Bill is a huge Beatles fan, so he wanted to go visit Abbey Road to get a picture of him crossing it. He and I have actually been there together, back in 2015, but for whatever reason, we didn’t get a photo of him crossing the road that time (maybe because we were there at night?), so this was the day to make it happen.

Getting to Abbey Road isn’t that difficult, but the closest station to get there directly from Shad Thames is London Bridge, about a 15-minute walk away. From there, it’s a 15-minute ride to St. John’s Wood, and then another 10-minute walk to the famous crossing. Easy-peasy! By the time we got to St. John’s Wood, the area felt a little familiar from our previous visit, so we pretty easily found our way there. We knew we were in the right spot because it’s obviously recognizable, but also because there was a line of ten or so people, all waiting to get their crossing-the-street photos. As you can see below, we got Bill a few shots!

Well, we made it to the right tube station. Hooray!

A whole series of photos of Bill crossing!

Bill and I collectively realized we had to visit one more must-see London spot before heading back to our hotels. Our friend, Big Ben! Thankfully, it was a pretty easy tube ride to Westminster, which is a fun station to walk out of because, if you choose the right exit, you literally walk right into the shadow of the famous clock. So that’s what we did! I made sure to point out that if we walked just down the road a bit, we could take advantage of the very photogenic spot that features both a famous red London phone box and Big Ben, which he was game for, so we had a mini-photoshoot there. Since my more recent go-to hotel is in the area, I’ve walked by the spot many times, so I knew right where to go and, once again, a small line of people highlighted our destination. You can see the results of our photoshoot below. 🙂

I wanted to make sure Bill had lots of options to choose from!

Not as many options for myself, but I take plenty of selfies anyway. 🙂

With plenty of photos taken and sights seen, we stopped for a quick drink (at my go-to hotel, no less, since we were down the street from it) and then caught the tube back to our hotels. As I said above, the five of us had already planned to have a final dinner together at The Builder’s Arms, which Jason had found earlier in the day, so we all met there after I had a little downtime in my hotel. A pub meal seemed like the perfect way to cap off a week in the UK! We had a nice time and tasty food, though it was certainly crowded, since we ate at 6p, which is prime after-work drinks timing. Although we were traveling at different times the next day, we didn’t want to be out late as three of us had really early starts on Friday – Bill, Jason, and I all had to be at Earl’s Court around 6a, with me and Bill going to Heathrow and Jason going to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar train to continue his European adventure. I’m so glad we got to have a final meal together though! And of course now that I’m finally getting this post written and my pictures shared, I realize I should have had someone take a group photo of us at dinner. Oh well!

Now, regular readers of this blog may remember that I pretty much always make my last night of a trip an early one, as I often seem to need to get up early to head to the airport the next morning. While that was indeed true this time as well, I had used my time before dinner wisely and gotten nearly all of my stuff packed up, so I thought I’d have time to see one more London landmark to put a bow on this trip. Earlier in the week, Bill had made the trip to see Battersea Power Station, which was once a functioning power station (not surprising, given its name), but which has since been refurbished and repurposed and is now a mall with apartments. It’s also home to Lift 109, an elevator that takes you 109 meters up, through one of the building’s chimneys, to see excellent views of the city. Sadly, I couldn’t get there in time to catch the last elevator ride of the night, but I could get there in time to see the building from the outside and to walk through its shop-filled interior (I wasn’t interested in shopping, but I figured it would be neat to walk around inside anyway). I’m really glad I did this because it was indeed neat to see, especially as I’d never been there before (the closest I got was on my first big trip with Scott, back in 2013, but that was before all the redevelopment work). It was a little bit of a jaunt to get there, since Battersea is a 15-20-minute walk from the nearest tube station, but it was still cool. I will definitely be returning on a future trip to go up Lift 109! Until then, these photos will tide me over. 🙂

My first glimpse of Battersea on my walk there from the tube. The second photo is cool because there’s an Underground train passing on the bridge.

It’s even more impressive close up!

I assume these are some of the original bits of Battersea, from its time as a power station.

With one final sight seen, my trip was well and truly over. Well, over enough, I suppose. I still had an early-ish night, so I got my little bit of packing done, along with some blogging, and then tried to get a good night’s sleep. Of course, that didn’t really happen, but I slept okay-ish (just not as well as I wanted to!). I’m not always the best sleeper anyway, but when I know I have to wake up early to get a train to an airport so I can fly home, I’m less likely to sleep well. You already know I made it back okay though!

I think I’ve got one more short post in me for this trip, so check back for that soon! Oh, and I’m about to head out on another international trip in a few days, so you certainly haven’t heard the last of me yet. 🙂