For the last day in London for the first part of the Kua family trip it was off to BBC studios for a tour of the BBC Television Centre at White City. Although the presence of BBC in the area will probably be no more by the end of next year for the moment at least it was easily accessible to us. The television studios were one of the first buildings designed specifically for making and transmitting television programmes.

The tour of the studios took us behind the public veil and into a couple of the working studios. As with all studio visits there is also an interactive element where members of the audience get to pretend to be on TV – either as news casters like Dad, or participants in a quiz programme, or working the behind the scenes in the sound booth.

After the tour we headed over to Westfield to grab some lunch – we ended up at GBK which surprised my family with how big their burgers are. Heh heh.

Fully stuffed we made our way over to the other side of town to take a walk from London Bridge to through the Borough Market and along the River Thames to see both London Bridge and Tower Bridge.

I was hoping that we would be around to see the Tower Bridge opening up but we were too early for that and as we had a dinner date with Pat’s roommate at the Bleeding Heart Tavern we couldn’t really hang around too long!

Mum must have been in the mood for food resembling her head size she chose this baby chicken for her dinner:

Too funny!

Day 2 was another early start for Dad, Mum and Stephen. Although let’s face it the start of every day of this holiday was potentially going to be an early start. Heh heh.

After filling up on breakfast at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand we meandered through over to await the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. On the way we stopped in at Trafalgar Square and The Mall for the requisite photos. I got Mum do some silly poses in front of some sculptures and there were some workmen sitting down having their morning tea – they vastly entertained by us if their p!ssing themselves with laughter (in a good natured way) was any indication. I love how Mum will do pretty much anything I ask her. She’s great!

The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace must surely be one of the most overrated tourist attractions in the world but its still gotta be done! You can read all the guides you want about the Changing of the Guards but the key to getting a good spot is to get there early. We thought that we would do something a little different and move around a bit so we could actually see the guards moving around – and not be stuck pressed to the gates of Buckingham Palace itself.

This kind of worked for us but it did involve quite a bit of running around!

It seemed fitting that having seen the Changing of the Guards that we would actually go in and visit Buckingham Palace itself. Although they try to regulate the numbers inside the Palace it still gets tremendously crowded – but it was worth the visit to see how much Mum thoroughly enjoyed it. She didn’t have to but she kept on thanking me for arranging for us to visit it! What a sweetie. I don’t know what Dad and the boys thought of it as we were milling around – we soon lost them to the crowd inside!

After Buckingham Palace we had some time before we did our London Duck Tour so we walked over from Buckingham Palace to the Eye, or pick up location for the London Duck Tours. Its so great how London is just so walkable!

The London Duck Tour was okay – though many of the sites it took us around were already part of our itinerary. Not sure it did much for our orientation but I guess it was pretty cool to take a dip into the Thames and see London from a different perspective. Our tour guide did his best to liven up the tour cracking some funny jokes and giving us some very random facts about London … sadly it was a little lost on the audience who didn’t seem to get it! Ah well.

After such a long day of running around hitting the tourist sites it was a very satisfied family that sat down for a rewarding meal at Tierra Brindisa.

My parents and Stephen have less than three weeks to fit in London plus three European cities. I was determined that they would see as much as I could cram into their schedule … hence despite their arrival near midnight last night I made them get up super early so that we could fit in a day trip to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor. Poor family! Ha ha!

For our trip I didn’t want to join one of those massive bus tours so I found International Friends who promised a more intimate visit (maximum of 16.) We met at the Cumberland Hotel where I took Dad and Mum inside to check out “our” bar before being picked up.

The most frustrating thing about day trips out of the London is that you quite often spend most of the day in your vehicle – especially if you’re trying to hit three different destinations like we were. Thankfully the traffic wasn’t too horrific and the time in the bus, when the guide wasn’t speaking, could be used by everyone to rest their eyes!

The way International Friends tours work is that the guide gives you a bit of a story whilst your in the bus, a short introduction when you get to the site and then you’re pretty much left to your own devices. This suited us perfectly.

Like anyone who visits Stonehenge everyone expressed their surprise at just how small it was. Although I was pleased to see that Dad was very excited and was taking photos all over the place. We had quite a bit of time at Stonehenge and pleasingly we’d beaten most of the giant tour buses so pretty much had it to ourselves. Having said that it was freakin’ cold so as soon as we were ready we ran into the shop! Ha ha!

A short drive after Stonehenge we got to Bath. Bath is known for its hot springs so we obligingly entered the Roman Baths museum. It was majorly crowded but, for me, extremely boring! But only cause I’d been there before. The most fascinating part of the museum was the video projection they had inside one of the baths of roman men taking baths … could you blame me for finding this interesting? 😉

Next up for the day was a visit to Windsor. By this time it was about mid-afternoon and we only had about an hour at Windsor. So what do we do? Oh no, we don’t visit Windsor Castle, instead we went into TK Maxx shopping for coats! Ha ha! We did have a fun time looking around though!

My play date with Sandra today started off with a visit to the London Transport Museum. Yes we are just big kids at heart! The Museum is located in the heart of Covent Garden and underwent a re-furb not too long ago. At over £12 to get in, it’s a little expensive for adults (or kid-ults like us) to get in but free for those under 16. Luckily we were able to use a 2-4-1 offer for the day to reduce the cost a bit.

The Museum has effectively three floors and there is definitely plenty to occupy for the little ones … and a little bit less so for the bigger ones! Still, if you have a interest in the history of London Transport, its quite a good museum and there is heaps of memorabilia, such as copper tokens (as opposed to tickets), old maps, adverts etc. to get through.

The lift amusingly goes up (or more technically down) by years rather than floor numbers.

The top floor is dedicated to 19th century London.

Level 1 starts to see the Growth of the Surburbs – and it is on this level that a kind of interactive bit for the kids exists e.g. they get to dress up and drive a bus, play interactive quizzes, and there is even a Guess Who of London Transport workers to play.

Finally the bottom floor has all the demonstrate buses etc.. and also exhibitions on London during the war (quite sobering) and a closer look at the workings of the Underground.

It took us just over an hour to work our way through the museum but that was probably because we didn’t read every single little thing … on the other hand we did waste some time climbing every demonstration bus and playing in the kids interactive area (the clothes were very tiny – we could only fit the caps on – heh heh!)

I can see this would be a great place to bring the little ones to play – next time I’ll have to borrow one! 😉

Since we were in the area, after brunch we dropped in to the Museum of Childhood. Part of the V&A, the Musesum of Childhood is, well, a museum of stuff from our childhood!

Its not only a place for the young ‘uns as you could spend an age looking at the dollhouses, puppets, teddy bears, games etc. in the collection – we certainly had fun identifying all the stuff we used to own!

I could think of worse ways to spend an hour or two.

Notting Hill has long been synonymous with celebrities so Rache thought it would be a nice birthday present for me to arrange for us to go on a celebrity tour of Notting Hill. The tour did not get off on the right foot as our tour guide was quite late and no one had let us know. On the plus side it ended up just being just random Russian guy, Rache and I on the tour so it was very intimate indeed. Lasting over two hours it was overwhelming the number of places that were pointed out to us covering celebrity homes, film locations, celeb hangouts and even spots where celebs had died! Unfortunately, no actual celeb spotted en route though our tour guide did have a flip chart of pictures to help us with association.

You can read the itinerary here for a full lowdown of where we went cause I actually can’t remember some of the places. Here are a couple that I remember.

Supposedly Jason Donovan’s place (also formerly Dire Straits ‘member Mark Knopfler’s residence) but to me it did look rather empty!

Denbigh Close where some scenes from the Italian job were shot

I think where Robbie Williams used to live:

Where many celebs stay when they’re in town

Where Jimi Hendrix died:

Elle’s former front door (though I’m sure you’re thinking that could be anywhere!) – Ladbroke Gardens

And just to show it was a lovely day, St Luke’s Mews, though I do also think it was the tragic site of Max Moseley’s son who died of an overdose:

For those into music, Sarm Studios is near All Saints’ Road. It was here that Take That’s 2008 album, the Circus, was produced.

And finally, this was THE door in the Notting Hill movie – only now the columns have been painted over in white!

The Houses of Parliament is the venue for the two houses of Parliament for the UK – the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament responsible revising and initiating legislation, and the House of Commons, where the true power lays. It is the House of Commons who the Prime Minister is answerable to.

Tours of the Houses of Parliament are open to the general public (that is, non-residents) throughout the summer only, when the Houses are out on recess, or on Saturdays. Residents can get (free) tours throughout the year arranged through your MP or a Lord. So popular are these tours that apparently they have to be booked about six months in advance!

On a lovely brilliant summer’s day Rache, Nic and I took the easier, but more expensive option, of buying tickets for a Saturday. The tour provided very popular and even though they limit numbers (I think approx. 30) there were at least three English groups that left in our particular time slot and each one was maxed out.

The whole process of how the Houses of Parliament works was explained from how members get their “agenda” for the day, protocols in the two Houses (e.g. voting, speaking, where people sit!), and the history of significant art/statues were explained. I quite liked our tour guide but the big group made it difficult at times to hear what he was saying. We were taken through the House of Commons (the green room) and the House of Lords (the room). Interestingly in the House of Lords votes are physical votes, where members leave the chamber and walk through a particular division to indicate their choice. No hiding behind paperwork in the House of Lords!

The tour lasts for approx. 75 minutes and is well worth experiencing … if just to get a better understanding of how the UK legislative system operates. Unfortunately no photos inside the actual houses though 🙁