Magic Bus

Once we returned to London from Windsor, our pace was a bit relaxed. We had a late lunch, shopped for tea, and then decided to ride on the top deck of a double decker bus. Mind you, we had no particular place to get to; just as we'd decided to ride a cable car in San Francisco purely for the experience, so we decided to ride a double decker bus in London.

It's a good thing we didn't have anywhere particular to get to, because it was coming up on rush hour, and the bus we boarded wasn't going to go anywhere fast. Forced on many levels to just sit back and enjoy the slowly passing sights, we got to see some interesting things.

We got a vivid illustration of the "circus" in Oxford Circus:



We also rode through Trafalgar Square, getting a glimpse of the countdown clock marking the days remaining to the start of the 2012 Olympics:


Ultimately, we got off our bus in Westminster, and took a short walk along the wall of the Houses of Parliament before catching the Underground back to our hotel.


Trivia time! That picture above that we took is not of Big Ben. (Well, nor is it technically from this particular day of our trip, but that's not the trivia.) Big Ben is the name of the largest of the bells inside the clock; the tower itself is called the Elizabeth Tower.

Anyway, that's the story of how we crossed "ride a double decker bus" off the list.