European Vacation 2016 - June 14th

After putting in 30,000+ steps in yesterday, time to get back it again.  This time it was the Tower of London first thing.  We arrived to the site in a drizzling rain - of course - then proceeded to walk up, down and round the Tower.  Amazing facility - built originally in 1070ish, and added on as the years went by.  Was the home of kings and queens during the middle ages, and also served as a prison.

We started by scaling the walls, and going in and out of the many towers that make up the outer fortress.  From there we waited a bit and visited the Crown Jewels.  Since my last visit to the Tower they have created a fantastic display for the emblems...very impressive.  Once out of there we went into the central White Tower, with tons of armaments, then ran into a Beefeater giving a tour and followed him into a chapel.

After the tower, we kept with the theme and visited Tower Bridge.  Didn't know where to enter, but once we found it we took a lift to the top and walked along skybridges.  These had tons of data on the bridge, as well as a glass walkway, which was occupied by a number of tourists doing their best vouging.  We descended down into the engine rooms for a peek on how the bridge worked.  Stuff looked like a movie set.

From Tower Bridge, I fancied riding a shared bike up the 2012 Olympic site.  Sam whined quite a bit about this due to the traffic congestion.  I totally understood why - London streets are hard enough for cars to drive.  Even so, I still had some time left on the bike share from yesterday, so I doggedly trekked on to find a station.  I did - right next to the Tower - and began our journey.  Thankfully within a few hundred feet of the bike port was a cycle superhighway!  We jumped on and rode a good two or three miles west.

I needed to ditch the bikes since my time was running out, and I couldn't locate the darn Olympic site. Thankfully the port was located right by a train station, and we took a ride out to a spot near the Olympic park area - or so we thought.  I got off at West Ham, and then accessed an elevated greenway (score!) that obviously was built for the Olympics, but has fallen into disuse.  We walked as far as we could on the path, then had to divert for a spell to reach the park.  In all we probably walked over two miles from the station - FAIL.

At the Olympic park we scanned what was the home of the world four years before.  Lots of stuff happening now, which is a good thing, but still very sparse.  After we were done sightseeing there, we made our way into a huge mall, and then to the train station and back to Roma's.