Greetings from London!  After spending far too much time trying to figure out why I was unable to edit and add pages to my travel blog, I gave up and started over with the new blog address!

We left home on Friday afternoon via Icelandair, and arrived in Reykjavik seven hours later.  Imagine our surprise when the entire plane was boarded, and no one was assigned to the seat next to us!!!  So we had an entire row of three seats to ourselves!  We didn't have the same luck on our next flight, but it was only a little over two hours from Reykjavik to London.

Going through customs at Heathrow Airport in London was a far better experience than the one we had in Paris two and a half years ago.  It actually took less time to go through customs than to retrieve our checked bags!    Our hotel had arranged a ride for us, and while it was a little more expensive than a cab or shuttle, it was nice after the long trip to have a driver waiting for us in a Mercedes.

Knowing that our time in London would be short, we made a list of priorities, and with few exceptions have seen everything on the list.  We have seen Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Parliament buildings, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London (amazing!), the Crown Jewels and St. Paul's Cathedral.  We've also strolled along the Thames, explored the high-end shops on Regent Street, took John's photo in front of the John Lewis department store, rode the "Tube" and a double-decker bus and consumed some great food and beer!  We still hope to walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens tomorrow morning before catching a train to York.

We did not realize when planning our trip that this was a three-day weekend here.  As a result, a few things were not available to us.  One thing that disappointed me was missing the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace due to holiday weekend events that were going on there, like the 10k run which ended at the palace yesterday.  We are amazed at the huge crowds everywhere in London.  I'm not sure if it was due to the holiday weekend, or if it's always like this.  We agreed that the only city where we've seen crowds like these was Florence, Italy.

I will share some more thoughts on London in my next post, but I have loved every minute here and wish that we had more time.  Tomorrow we will take the train north to York, a town rich in English history.  Please leave feedback so that I know someone out there is reading this!