On July 3rd, 2000, 22 excited Cadette & Senior
Scouts and their 8 chaperones left JFK airport in New York for a 9
day trip to Europe. Because of a flight delay that caused us to miss
our tour connection at Heathrow Airport in London, we spent some time
trying to catch up on our sleep in the airport.
We're glad we got our rest beforehand, because
Nicki, our tour director from EF Tours, kept us very busy for the
next four days in London. On our first day, we walked by Parliament,
Big Ben, Trafalgar Square (saw lots of pigeons!), Westminster Abbey
& Covent Garden. We also took a tour of St Paul's Cathedral where
Charles and Di were married.
Ê
Parliament & Big Ben
The next day we drove out to Windsor Castle. Some
of the old moats were converted into beautiful gardens. The girls
especially liked seeing Queen Mary's dollhouse. The details were
amazing! It not only had electric lights that worked and hot &
cold running water in the laundry, but the books in the library were
specially written for the doll house by famous authors. Later we
visited Picadilly Circus and had dinner at Planet Hollywood. Then we
took off for the theater district to see "Blood Brothers".
One of the gardens in an old
moat
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| Oxford University |
In Stratford we first visited Anne Hathaway's
cottage-she was the wife of William Shakespeare. Then we toured
Shakespeare's birthplace and museum and walked around all the
wonderful little shops in the village. Later when we got back to
London we went to a performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in
Regent's Park.
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| Shakespeare's birthplace |
Our fourth day in London was a free day for us.
Our troop, consisting of 7 girls and 3 adults, had planned out the
night before what they wanted to do that day. We started out by
visiting Harrod's department store-you could find just about anything
you wanted there. The girls were fascinated by all the different
foods-7 departments just for food-candy, coffee & teas, fruits,
meats etc. We stopped in several little boutiques along Brompton Road
and finally found our way to the Girl Guide shop near Buckingham
Palace where the girls all bought patches as souvenirs. Afterwards we
went back to the Covent Garden section. There were many buskers
entertaining the crowds-one man was dressed entirely in gold, another
woman was dressed as a daffodil. There were also magicians, mimes and
musicians. Needless to say the girls also found time to visit the
many shops in the area, and we had lunch in a wonderful underground
Italian restaurant.
Once we were full, we took the tube to
Blackfriar's Bridge and spent the rest of the afternoon walking along
the Thames River. We went into the new Tate Modern Art Museum, and
walked by the new Globe Theater, London Bridge and the Tower of
London.
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| London Bridge |
Tower of London |
We met the rest of our group for
dinner-Italian again! Then we all took off for our ride on the London
Eye. This is a big ferris wheel on the Thames River that was erected
for the Millennium celebration and is 430 feet high. The view of
London was fantastic!
The next morning we left our hotel early, (7 AM)
and boarded the bus for our ride to Canterbury. This is still a
walled city that contains the beautiful Canterbury Cathedral. From
there we went to Dover where we boarded the ferry for our trip to
Calais, France. If you looked back on the ride over you could see the
famous white cliffs of Dover. We learned that there are many tunnels
in the cliffs that were used by the soldiers during WWII.
To continue on, click the link below:
Our Paris trip
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Ireland/England Trip
