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Showing posts from January, 2014

Haunted London Walk!!!

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For first timers to both London and Paris, I would highly recommend getting this nifty travelling tool known as the  London Pass (or conversely the Paris Pass) . For the price of  £77 , one gets  access to all the major tourist spots  with special  cut-the-queue lines , discounts on various restaurants and services and more importantly,  FREE access to the London Tube  for three full days! A VERY good deal indeed for those planning on maximizing their visits on limited tour dates. Upon looking at the London Pass booklet, my cousins and I were stoked to find a special offer for the  Blood and Tears Haunted London Walk . For the price of  £7.00 , we got to go on this highly-rated and recommended walking tour, focusing on the bizarre, creepy and occult-ish elements of this medieval city. * Having met our guide,  Declan McHugh , on the  Barbican tube station , we started our  one hour and 45 minute walking tour  of London's gruesome and freaky history, including areas w

Westminster Abbey - Burial Place of Legends

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One cannot go to London and NOT SEE Westminster Abbey !  To do so would be a grand disservice to your trip. I mean how can you not experience the  most important (and heck, oldest) church in London :  site of coronations, burials, memorials, and lookalike to every Citadel in our dreams?! Yeah, I'm a big fan of this place. So big that I purposely and happily went here thrice in the two times that I've visited London! *  Taking the tube  to Westminster and  getting off Westminster Station , short and sweet!! While I greatly appreciated the presence of English all around (compared to everywhere else in Europe), I must say that  I found the Paris Metro to be more navigable compared to the London Tube . Must be because the Metro uses a numbering system (Get off the 6, Hop on the 9) compared to the system of the Tube which uses named lines (Jubilee Line... Jubilee Line.. Wait, what I am doing on the Metropolitan Line?!)

Big Boy at Big Ben, Parliament and Whitehall

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Across the river from the London Eye stands  Westminster , England's  political and religious center . Since the  11th Century , Westminster has proudly been the center of power for the English people from the moment  King Canute built his palace  here and his successor,  Edward the Confessor , founded Westminster Abbey right beside it . On a regular day, expect to see crowds of civil servants and tourists coexisting in this tiny yet hallowed area. * Taken from Parliament Square is this shot of  Parliament on the right  and the  Norman Shaw Buildings , the original site of the famous  Scotland Yard  synonymous with Sherlock Holmes and detective work,  on the left .