Country: England

Cities / towns explored: London, Sussex, Brighton

Currency: British Pound, 1 pound = $2.7 Australian

What´s it famous for - Everything!

Main Languages: English

Main Attractions: London was the best city i´ve ever been to, there was something to do for everybody!

You can go down to the Museums and they are free and REALLY good from their huge sets, you can go for a pint at a classic Irish pub down the alley and play Snooker with some nice chaps.

Free concerts in musical colleges and you can jam with the players! The tours were awesome, awesome cafes with awesome food at reasonable prices, fantastic architecture and history.

Main Detractions:Very annoying traffic in & around London, and on top of that British cabs are the most expensive in the world. You´d pay about $120au/hour for a ride. Avoid London using cars in the morning school times and totally in the evening when everyone comes back from work & school, its a fucking lockdown lolll.

And its not really because its crowded or anything, most British roads only have 2 lanes.. with 1 for parking. Other than that, London is brilliant!

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The Royal Albert Bridge, from Gattwick Airport:
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Royal%20Albert%20Bridge.JPG

Got up in the morning and decided to explore nearby! London in the morning:
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/London%20Street.JPG

I stayed in a hotel in Kensington, London. These are more ¨modern classical¨ British apartments in They have 3-4 bedrooms, very small staircases & no garage and guess how much they cost? Not 1, not 5, not 10, not 15, but 20 MILLION POUNDS FOR 1 OF THESE, THATS ALMOST $60 MILLION AUSTRALIAN.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Apartments.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Intersection.JPG

Then I went on to the Natural History museum, this museum was excellent :D, it was free and a musuem actually captured my interest for once! I went around in it for about 8 hours!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Natural%20Museum.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Natural%20Museum%20Outside.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Museum1.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Museum5.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Museum6.JPG

This escalator lead up to the Solar System part of the museum, which was a lot of fun!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Museum7.JPG

I took a break before venturing on to the Royal Albert Hall & Musical College, went to Hyde Park. Some nice monuments!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Animal%20Monument.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/RA%20Memorail.JPG

lol, a contrast to the cat lady in the simpsons :p
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Bird%20Lady.JPG

The Royal Albert Hall, British opera house pretty much
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Royal%20Albert%20Hall.JPG

I went across to the musical college.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Musical%20College.JPG

To my luck it was opening day, check out the scenes! (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Opening%20Day.MPG)
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Open%20Day.JPG

After being on my feet for about 11 hours I decided to call it a day and went to the British supermarket and surprisingly found a deli/restaurant inside!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Tesco.JPG

Dinner for 4 for about 5 pounds! (almost $15au)
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/5%20pounds.JPG

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Next morning I took the Open Bus Tour which will explore the real parts of London: Big Ben, London Eye, Piccadily Circus etc etc, get ready!
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10 Downing Street, where the Blairs live!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/10%20Downing%20Street.JPG

The Admiltary Arch
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Admiltary%20Arch.JPG

The Royal Guard to the Queen & Buckingham Palace
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Royal%20Guard.JPG

These are trained soldiers for the British army btw, snap you up if you try shit lolz.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Royal%20Guard2.JPG

Some Army General in WWII
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Army%20General.JPG

The Bank of England, notice no windows, so people dont break in duh!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Bank%20of%20England.JPG

The first Irish pub in England. Omfg just look at that, it looks spectacular, and the atmosphere inside is so classic for that era, you can even order a pint and find people doing an Irish jig!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/First%20Irish%20Pub.JPG

Enter Trafalgar Square!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Fountain.JPG

lolling irl
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/lol%20statue.JPG

The shop that supplies the Queen with her undies loll, and formal attire
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Queen%20Undies.JPG

Her own theatre too, Jesus D:
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Queen%20Theatre.JPG

Her royal haircut parlour!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Royal%20Haircut.JPG

London was the first city in the world to have Electronic ads, check out the footage! (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Electric%20ads.MPG)
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Electronic%20Ads.JPG

The London Bridge
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/London%20Bridge.JPG

Behold, Big Ben!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Big%20Ben2.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Big%20Ben1.JPG

The London Eye! This glorous ferris wheel has pods which fit about 16 people and costs about 20 or 30 pounds to ride in, 250pounds if u want to book it lolll. Takes 30 minutes to go around and gives 40km of panoramic views.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Big%20Ben1.JPG

This is a great shot, you can see BIg Ben through the eye!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/londoneye2.JPG

The more modernised version of London, the Swiss RE tower
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Swiss%20RE%20Tower.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Modern%20Design.JPG

River Tames
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/River%20Tames.JPG

London Dungeon (a tourist trap!)
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/London%20Dungeon.JPG

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How awesome was that :D? Next we drove through the English countryside where there was some truely marvelous cottages.. but my camera died. We went to Sussex where lies an awesome university.
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http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Countryside1.JPG

Forest lane, miles & miles of rolling hills, with a few cows lolz
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Forest%20Lane.JPG

Sussex University is pretty much on a hill, it just lies between green pastures!
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Sussex1.JPG

Uni apartments - similar to standard Australian ones
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Suxxes2.JPG

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Next, we drove to Brighton, which other than being a big LOL, is also England´s premiere seaside suburb. I was quite stunned coz its a total concrete jungle.

There are a lot of people and a lot of traffic, and the Beach was shit, honestly. The worst Australian beach would be more preferable than this half sand half stone whatever they call it!
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Heading towards it, England is atleast catching up to its other European rival cities by having bicycle lanes.
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Brighton1.JPG

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Brighton2.JPG

I googled this for a better angle, but you can see what I mean lolll
http://www.tashian.com/carl/photos/brighton-beach-and-pier.2.jpg

The restaurants around were expensive, but they were REALLY good, check out this crazy Azn chef who cooked for us (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~webness/England/Aznchef1.MPG), he rocks lol.

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I hope you enjoyed London & other bits of England! I´d highly recommend London for a holiday because there is so much to do, I barely had enough time D:. Just book a cheap hotel in advance and try avoiding a flight to Gattwick airport.. you do not want to pay $120au/hour to travel!

Overall:

City: 9/10 (-1 for traffic)
Hospitality: 8/10 (Some people were nice, others had a stick up their ass)
Food: 10/10 (heaps of awesome cafes at reasonable prices)
Costs: 8/10 (Cabs are a rip off)
Activities: 10/10 (A week won´t be enough to fully go around!)

= 45/50

Nice pics, takes me back.

Dude, there is a dedicated fast train from Gatwick to the City!

That isn't 10 Downing Street, it's actually not a very spectacular building, just a door in the road really, and the entire street is closed off allowing no-one nearby.

I don't think that's a WW2 General either in the statue, the uniform looks like it's from the 1800's.

Looks like they are working on Nelsons Column in Trafalgar Square, it's a fine monument.

Did you see the British Museum, it's awesome, the best I have ever seen with some truly historic stuff inside such as the Rosella Stone and Elgin's Marbles. Also next door to the Natural History museum is the science museum, did you go there, it has heaps of cars, aircraft, etc. It has one of the Apollo space capsules and also Stevensens Rocket, the first ever train.

Did you go up the London Eye, the views are awesome, it's worth the 15 Pounds.

Did you find the Monument? A big tower in the city, built after the Great Fire in the 1600's. Did you see the Australian war memorial at Hyde Park corner?

Close to the London Dungeon that you mention is the London Blitz Experience, I highly recomend that, it's a bit of a museum to London during WW2 and the German bombing, it's very well done, with all sorts of re-creations and displays. If you like aircraft the RAF museum in North London is great, you can get there on the tube. And of course the Imperial War Museum which is like our version in Canberra. Tower Bridge, and the Tower itself are both worth paying to do the tours of.

Did you catch a tube, or visit any of the huge stations such as Waterloo or Kings Cross/St Pancras? Did you visit any of the many cheesy Aussie pubs?

National History Museum and Admiralty Arch are both great, London has many fine classic buildings.

Sound like your tour was a bit rushed, so I hope you have time to go back and do some more.

Well i lived in england for a year in 1998 and lived out in islington just a few blocks down from highbury stadium. So i went and saw arsenal kick ass a few times. But i wish i could have stayed there more than a year. :(

Spectacular pics!
Im jealous - I so badly want to go to ye olde country!!!

The London Eye! This glorous ferris wheel has pods which fit about 16 people.

iPods? :p

ahaha

no aussie bhoy i had no time to do that stuff, the tour guy said thats 10 downing! who wants to catch a train when u have like 10 bags and its midnight!?

Riding around on the tube is a London must if you want to be like a local for a while, get to know your Pic line from the District, or even do a Circle line pub crawl.

Hope you have more time, are you still in London or travelling around?

good old poms, always great with their crosses between old landmark buildings, and new buildings, keep up the good work. Nice photos btw :applause: m))

i only had 2 nights in London, im back in Barcelona, coming back to Sydney in 2 days

im yet to upload netherlands & paris but i ran out of webspace D:, so ill do it when i get back