Today was our last full day in Europe so I planned something special as our grand finale.  Very early on in my research, I discovered a full day (over 12 hours!!!) bus tour that takes you to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge, and we were both immediately excited about this opportunity.  Several different companies offer this tour, but we booked with Viator because they were offering a 10% off discount for Black Friday.  Of course, Viator is just a middle man as a booking agent so they would not be operating the actual tour.  When I got our confirmation email, it said the tour was with Evan Evans Tours, so that was fine with me because they got good reviews on Trip Advisor.  There were several ways to book this tour, but we opted to book with all of our entrance fees included, because why would we NOT do that?!  It would be a pretty boring tour to just take a bus to each of the towns but not enter the main attractions!  We could cancel for free up to 2 days in advance, so that was reassuring although we did not plan to cancel.  As busy of a day as I knew this would be, the idea of spending some time sitting on a bus sounded wonderful after 10 straight days of walking all over Paris and London!

The only down side to this tour was that we had to meet at the Victoria Coach Station by 7:30am!  Holy moley that was crazy early!!  It would take us about 30 minutes to get there from our hotel, so we needed to leave by 7am at the latest.  Our hotel did not open the breakfast room until 7am so that meant we were on our own to find breakfast today.  I set the alarm clock for zero-dark-thirty so we could get ready and leave the hotel by 6:45am.  We had already scouted out a Costa Coffee on the corner of our street so we stopped in there to pick up some croissants for breakfast.  We also bought some pre-packaged sandwiches to eat on the bus for lunch.  The tour description said there was no designated lunch break and we did not want to waste our precious time at the attractions with searching for a place to buy lunch, so it worked out perfectly to pick up a few sandwiches here.

We hopped on the blue Victoria line to take the Tube to the Victoria Station.  Unfortunately, what we did not realize was that the “Victoria Station” and the “Victoria Coach Station” are two different places!  They are about a 10 minute walk apart, but it took us longer than that because we had to keep asking people where to go.  I had assumed it was all in the same building, but I guess it was no different than in Manhattan when you arrive by train into Penn Station and need to walk to Port Authority to catch a bus.  Silly me!

Anyway, after a stressful and confusing few minutes of fast-paced walking, we finally found the Victoria Coach Station.  The directions said to meet at Gates 1 to 5, so of course, when we entered the building, there was a sign pointing to the left towards Gates 0 and 1, and towards the right for Gates 2 to 5.  Awesome.  We went to the left, assuming both directions would meet in the middle at the end of the hall, and that turned out to be correct.  We spotted a big sign for Evan Evans Tours and there was a lady with a clip board checking other people in.  There were already over one hundred people standing around in this area, so I can only imagine how early they had arrived!  We found our names on the check list and the lady gave us wrist bands and said to stand in line as the buses were already boarding. 

We got at the end of a very long line, so I immediately realized there must be multiple coach buses doing our same itinerary.  Sure enough, as we approached the front of the line, there were still tons of people in line behind us.  The first bus must have been close to full by now, and I did not want to be the last to board because we’d get the worst seats at the back of the bus, or possibly even be split up and not get to sit together.  No thanks!  When it was our turn to board, I asked if that bus was nearly full, and the lady said yes, that we were the last two people on that bus.  I asked if it was possible to go on the next bus instead, and she pointed me towards a second line of 8 other people who must have made the same request!  Haha!  Clearly I was not the only person with that concern!  After that, the person in charge came over to see what was happening and she was very upset that they couldn’t find people willing to take the last 2 seats on the first bus so she basically forced the next people in line to get on that bus without giving them the option of refusing.  I felt bad for them, but I was happy that we were now one of the first people to board the second bus and we could have our pick of seats.

As we boarded the bus, our guide handed us each a portable audio device called a Vox Box and some headphones.  I wish I had known we would be using this device because the ear buds were very uncomfortable for me and I would have brought my own pair, but since I didn’t know, my pair was back in the hotel.  We found seats towards the front of the bus and got settled in.  There was a storage rack above the seats to stash our bags, and the seats were plush and well padded, but there was no toilet on the bus.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coach bus in this style without a toilet at the back, so that was surprising to me.  It didn’t take long for all 50 people to board the bus, and then we left the station.  Each bus left as it filled up, so we knew we would be the second bus to arrive at Windsor Castle. 

Our tour guide for today was Andy, and the bus driver was Russell.  Andy used a microphone on the bus to explain the plan for our day, and a bit of history and background information.  It took about an hour to drive to Windsor Castle in rush hour traffic, and Andy spoke for that entire time!  We arrived at about 8:30am, and there was only one other bus in the parking lot!  That was probably the first Evan Evans bus to depart, so it paid off that our tour left Central London so early in the morning!  As Andy led us from the parking lot, we could see the Castle up in the distance.

On the way, Andy pointed out this portrait of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made entirely out of Legos!  How cool is that?!  It was created for their royal wedding which was held here in 2018, and remains on display at the Windsor train station.

We walked through the train station and wound our way through several side streets until we saw this straight ahead of us:

Andy explained that he was going to let us walk around Windsor Castle on our own and that we would need to find our own way back to the bus by 11:30am, so he pointed out this horse statue on the corner as a good landmark to find the right side street back towards the bus parking lot.

He continued to walk through several more side streets as we approached the Castle entrance.  I snapped this photo while we were walking and it turned out to be one of my favorite photos of the entire trip!  At the far end of the street, you can see the gate where we would eventually exit Windsor Castle at the end of our time there.

Finally, we walked up along the side of a stone wall and Andy told us to line up here to wait to enter the Castle.  They don’t open until 9:30am so we were very early and would have a long wait here in this spot.  Andy filled the time and kept us entertained with more stories about British history.  This was one of the times when we made use of the Vox Box so we could hear him clearly, and you can see his Vox Box hanging from his neck.

This is Andy…

I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a photo with the outer gates when no other people were around!

It was kind of fun that we could keep listening to Andy while we took this photo!  Notice the ear buds in our ears and the box hanging around our necks…

In this time, Andy explained that if we wanted to watch the Changing of the Guards, the best place to do it was OUTSIDE of the castle grounds, back near that blue horse statue.  He said that they close off the exit gate when the guards are marching through, and if you get stuck inside the castle at that time, you likely will not be able to get back to the bus in time for our 11:30 time of departure.  He said we should exit through that gate by 10:50am and that we could line up along the sidewalk outside of the castle to watch the guards march by, but we could not watch the actual changing of the guards because then we would be too late to catch the bus.

While we were standing there, we noticed hundreds of other tour groups arriving in the area and getting on line behind us.  The line snaked all the way down the street and around the corner, so it was great knowing we were at the front of the line, even if it meant we were twiddling our thumbs in that spot for about an hour before the Castle opened!  At least once we were allowed to enter, we would be first to go through security and stay ahead of the crowds inside the Castle.  The people at the end of that line would be waiting for a very long time to enter the Castle and would ultimately have less time to spend there.  Evan Evans Tours for the win!

Finally, at 9:30am, they allowed us to enter a big holding room where we lined up again as Andy handed out tickets to each of us.  We then showed these tickets to the security agent as we walked through the metal detector and our bags passed through the x-ray machine.  Andy had warned us to leave any questionable possessions on the bus so we wouldn’t have a hold up at the security check.  After that, Andy left us to explore on our own.  When I booked this tour, I had assumed our guide would escort us around the grounds and explain what we were seeing, but that was not the case.  We could have purchased audioguides, but by now, it was 9:45am, so we only had one hour to see everything before needing to exit for the Changing of the Guards.  We didn’t think we’d have enough time to listen to the guide and go at that slower pace if we wanted to see everything, so we opted to just walk around and see what we could see.  As it turned out, one hour was exactly the perfect amount of time for us to move through the grounds at a quick pace and get to explore St. George’s Chapel and the State Apartments.  It probably helped speed us along that we were not permitted to take photos inside (although I did accidentally take one or two before I realized no photos were allowed!  Oops!).

Once past security, we followed the path along the outer perimeter of the property.

When we got to this fork in the road, we could either continue towards St. George’s Chapel (on the right of this photo), or go down to the State Apartments.  Andy had said he recommends spending more time at the Chapel because most people don’t save enough time to see this place and he thinks it is more interesting than the Apartments, so we went there first.

The side of St. George’s Chapel

When you enter, there are ropes to prevent you from walking into the middle of the chapel, and you have to walk along a specific path that winds all around the chapel.  First you walk along the side towards the back of the room…

From the back of the chapel, you have a beautiful view of the entire room…

At that point, I saw the sign which said no photos allowed, so I had to stop taking pictures.  Bummer! 

This chapel was the site of many royal funerals, and many of them are buried here so you can walk around and view their coffins.  It caught me off guard at how moved I was when I saw the coffins of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I in their own special room in the chapel.  I really wasn’t expecting that!  Andy was right that this chapel is worth spending some time to explore, but sadly, we had to keep moving if we wanted to see the State Apartments.

As we walked between the two buildings, we caught a great view between the trees, overlooking the town and countryside.

I snapped this one last photo before walking through that door to enter the State Apartments, where once again, no photos were allowed inside.

We followed the marked path through a series of rooms used by former Kings and Queens.  Although Windsor Castle is her primary residence, the rooms on our self-guided tour are not used by Queen Elizabeth II.  I suppose that is not too surprising though since the Queen lives here instead of in Buckingham Palace to keep her privacy, so she probably doesn’t want a bunch of tourists traipsing through her bedroom! 

It took us about 20 minutes to walk through the section of the State Apartments open to tourists.  When we exited, we were in this interior courtyard which was perfect for a photo opportunity!

It was getting close to 10:50am so we made our way back out to the exit as Andy had instructed.  It was now much more crowded than when we walked through earlier this morning.

We weren’t exactly sure how long it would take to exit out to that street intersection, but it turned out that as soon as we passed through the opening at the base of that hill, we were back in front of the gate where we took that photo while we were waiting to enter the castle.  We just had to walk a short distance downhill and we couldn’t miss the place we needed to go because there were already a ton of people lining the streets and waiting for the guards to march by. 

Right on time at 10:52am, we heard and saw the marching band coming up the street!

I just love those bearskin hats!

It’s so impressive how well they march perfectly in step…

In less than 2 minutes, the whole thing was over.  The guards continued marching towards the castle and that was that!  We still had over 30 minutes until we had to meet back at the bus, so we walked around the town for a few minutes, then started walking back towards the parking lot.  On the way, we passed a store called EAT which sold to-go sandwiches.  Both of us were very hungry by this time and we realized that the sandwiches we bought this morning would not be enough food to fill us up until 7:30pm when the tour ended so we stopped to buy two more sandwiches for a mid-morning snack and we saved our original sandwiches for later in the day.  Andy recommended that we use the restrooms in the train station before returning to the bus, so we did that, then walked the rest of the way to the parking lot.  We arrived at 11:25am and nearly everyone else on our bus was already back in their seats!  We had great luck all day with the people on our bus all arriving promptly for our departure time.  I always hear horror stories about these big bus tours where you waste half your day waiting for that one couple who can’t seem to get back to the bus on time.  We had no such issues today and pulled out of the Windsor Castle parking lot at exactly 11:30am!

Once we got going, Andy explained that we would need about 2 hours to get to Bath.  He spent some of that time walking through the bus and speaking to each couple in case we had any questions.  I took this opportunity to ask something that I had been wondering all week but felt kind of silly about asking.  I asked Andy about what will happen to the British National Anthem after the Queen is no longer the Queen.  The song is “G-d Save the Queen” so what will they do when Prince Charles or Prince William takes the throne?  He said they will change the lyrics to “G-d Save the King”!  Simple enough, but she has been the Queen my whole life so I wasn’t sure how it would be handled when there is a King!  Now I know 🙂

We spent the rest of the 2 hours just relaxing on the bus.  The bus had strong air conditioning, which was much appreciated on this hot summer day, and there were USB charging ports at each seat so we could keep our phones charged.  There wasn’t much to look at during our journey… just a lot of grass and trees!

As we got closer to Bath, we spotted some animals grazing in the pasture.  I’m not sure if they were sheep or goats.

I loved how the bushes and trees made the countryside look like a patchwork quilt!

Exactly 2 hours after leaving Windsor, we pulled up to a traffic circle in a quaint town, and Russell parked the bus.  Andy told us all to get off the bus because Russell could not stay here, but that he would return to this spot at 3pm to pick us up.  That gave us just an hour and a half to explore Bath, but first we had to follow Andy to the main attraction: The Roman Baths.  Some people on our tour did not pay for admission here, so they could spend the full 90 minutes exploring the town of Bath.  The rest of us followed Andy down the street to a plaza in front of the Bath Abbey, and we were told to wait here until we could enter the baths.

The Roman Baths date back to around 40AD when the Romans invaded Britain and discovered the natural hot springs in this region.  They channeled the hot mineral water through lead pipes to create a series of baths, heated steam rooms, and plunge pools.  They spent the next 300 years developing this complex with a large bathhouse, a religious temple, a several public pools.  When the Romans left in 410AD, the baths were abandoned until they were rediscovered in the late 1800s and could be restored to the tourist site we know today.

It was very busy at this time, with 6 sections of corrals for 6 tour buses.  One by one, the sections were allowed to enter the baths, so I guess they were trying to regulate traffic to avoid overcrowding.  We finally got to enter at 2pm, so I wasn’t thrilled that we wasted one third of our precious time here with just waiting in line.  When we entered, an agent explained that we must not touch the water in the baths in any way because there is a bacteria in the water which can be very harmful.  That sounded kind of gross, so no worries, I’ll keep a safe distance away from the water!  The audioguides are included with the cost of your admission, so we took them and started walking through the complex.  Andy had said you can speed through in 20 minutes, or you can linger for up to an hour (but then you would miss the bus!), so we tried to keep a good pace to leave us some time to explore the town of Bath when we exited.

We listened to about half of the audioguide numbers because we just didn’t have the time or patience to listen to everything.  There is a ton of history here, but it was very crowded so we didn’t feel the need to linger very long.

This was the outer wall of the Temple Courtyard and a stone buttress to support the corner of the building over the Sacred Spring.

This display shows a sampling of the over 12,000 Roman coins found at the bottom of the Sacred Spring.

This is the spring overflow which carries surplus water from the hot spring to the original Roman drain, and on to the River Avon back near the traffic circle where we got off the bus.

We continued exploring the museum for a few more minutes until we found our way outside to the Great Bath in the main courtyard.  There is algae in the water which makes it look green and murky, so it wasn’t an issue to comply with the rule to not touch the water because it was anything but inviting!

This was one of the smaller pools inside the complex, and they had a video projected on the far wall to depict people bathing in the pools.

This circular bath was filled with coins settled along the bottom

A little blurry, but you get the idea…

We took one last peek overlooking another pool before walking up the stairs to exit the baths.

On the way out, we stopped to use the very clean restrooms, then bypassed the souvenir shop to exit back out onto one of the back alleys in the town of Bath.

It was now 2:30pm, so we spent 30 minutes exploring the Roman Baths.  Sure, it would have been nice to spend more time here and to really scour each exhibit and listen to all of the audio guide recordings, but we knew that was not possible.  In order to hit these 3 major attractions in one day, we knew that we were signing up for short glimpses at each place and we were okay with that.  I definitely wanted some time to explore the town of Bath, however brief that would be. 

We walked passed a series of narrow streets and pedestrian alleys, lined with shops and cafes.

Turning around the corner, we had a beautiful view of the medieval gothic Bath Abbey.

At this point, DH was hungry and wanted to find somewhere to buy a snack.  We had about 20 minutes to go until we needed to be on the bus so we split up and he walked around the town looking for food while I walked out towards the Parade Gardens overlooking the River Avon to get some photos.

This is the Pulteney Weir, a dam built in the 1600’s to prevent flooding in the town of Bath, which was later updated in the 1970’s to create this V-shaped design.  In the background, you can see the Pulteney Bridge which was built in the late 1700’s to cross the River Avon and eliminate the need for a ferry.

I was so charmed by this little town, with something beautiful to see in every direction.

The spire peeking out in the background is from St John the Evangelist’s Church, a Victorian Roman Catholic church that was badly damaged in WWII.

As I returned to the traffic circle, I could see several tour buses lined up so I knew I’d better hurry up. 

When I got back to the intersection where Russell dropped us off, I saw DH working his way through a fresh Belgian waffle topped with nutella.  He bought it from The Real Italian Ice Cream Company, and he was nice enough to save me a bite.  Wow, it was delicious!  We got back on the bus along with the last few people on our tour, and the bus pulled away at exactly 3pm.

Andy told us it would take one hour to get to our final stop at Stonehenge.  He handed out special maps and explained how we could use the laser pointer on the tip of our Vox Boxes to scan each number on the map and listen to the history of Stonehenge.  I have never seen anything like this before, but it was really easy to use.  Andy recommended that we spend our time on the bus listening to all of the audio files so that we could focus our time at Stonehenge actually seeing the stones and taking photos instead of trying to listen to the audio guide in our limited time out there.

We pulled into the parking lot at exactly 4pm.  It’s amazing how all of our stops today were such precise distances away (exactly 1 hour from London to Windsor, 2 hours from Windsor to Bath, and now exactly 1 hour from Bath to Stonehenge!)  Andy said our bus would be departing at 5:20pm to return to London, and he pointed us down a path towards the visitor center where we could board a shuttle to drive us out to the stones.  There is a trail if you choose to walk out to the stones, but that would take 30 minutes so we did not have enough time to do that (nor did we really want to walk when there was the option of taking a 5-minute bus ride haha).  There were already several people from other tour buses waiting in line to take the shuttle, so we couldn’t fit on the first one to arrive.  Luckily, another shuttle pulled up a minute later.  Along the way, you have views out over the vast countryside, with nothing but grass and trees as far as the eye can see.

When you exit the shuttle, it is very obvious where to go next.  There is a long path through the grass leading up to and around the stones.  By now, it was late in the afternoon, and there were hundreds of other tourists here with us, but since the path encircling the stones is so large, it never really felt crowded.

You can see lots of people crowded on the right side of this photo.  You are not permitted to walk directly up to the stones, and you must stay on the marked path which forms a circle around the entire perimeter.  The spot where all those people are standing is the closest point to the stones.  We opted to walk clockwise around the stones so we would end our loop at that spot as a grand finale.

This was such a huge bucket list moment for us.  We both found it so fascinating to learn the history of Stonehenge and how it was possibly used as a burial ground.  Archeologists believe this monument dates back to 3000BC.  It just seems so incredible to imagine that these stones have stood in this position for 5000 years!  We took our time walking around the perimeter and pondering how on earth those people carried these enormous stones without using a wheel. 

This arrow lines up to the path of the sun on December 21 as it sets precisely between the opening between the stones on the Winter Solstice.  There is a similar view directly across the stones where the sun lines up on June 21 for the Summer Solstice.  We were here just 10 days after the Summer Solstice, but that was actually a good thing because Stonehenge is closed to tours on that day!

We spent about half an hour walking around the stones and taking it all in.  Unlike Windsor Castle and Bath, I thought that was the perfect amount of time to spend at Stonehenge and I was ready to head back at that point.  It was now 4:45pm, so we walked back to the shuttle bus pick up location and were met by a huge line of people!  Oh my!  All of those people who had been crowded around the stones were now all leaving at the exact same time as us.  Bus after bus arrived and we were still no where near the front of the line.  I think we waited for 4 or 5 buses until we could finally board, so that took much more time than we anticipated.  We knew it would be a long bus ride back to London so we wanted a few minutes to use the restrooms, but by the time we got back to the visitor center, it was already 5:10pm.  Of course, you must walk through the souvenir shop upon exiting the shuttle, and there were no signs pointing us towards the restrooms.  We walked as quickly as possible around the shop to the exit, found an employee and asked where we could find the restrooms as precious minutes ticked away. 

Mission accomplished, we then had to find our way back out to the coach bus parking lot, and all the way to the back of the lot where our bus was parked.  We got back to the bus at 5:25pm, just as Andy was getting ready to close the doors!  Whew!  It was such a relief that he waited for us, and I have a feeling we weren’t the only ones having trouble getting back to the bus on time!  Unfortunately, we waited until 5:30pm and were still missing two people.  Andy arranged to send those people back on one of the other Evan Evans buses who were due to depart a little later.  I can only imagine how stressful it would be for that couple when they arrived back at our bus’s parking spot and the bus was gone, with Andy and Russell no where in sight!  Hopefully the guide from the other bus had a way to identify this couple, and hopefully they didn’t leave any of their belongings on our bus. 

As we left Stonehenge, Andy said we would have a 2-hour drive back to London.  After such a long day of touring, it was nice to have this extended rest break, seated comfortably on an air conditioned bus.  As we were sitting near the front of the bus, we overheard Andy take a phone call shortly into the trip from the other tour guide who said he found the couple that missed our bus and they were all set to return on his bus instead. 

We hit a lot of traffic as we were getting closer to London, so Andy offered to make an extra stop in South Kensington near the Gloucester Road tube station.  We would be driving passed there on our way to the Victoria Coach Station so it was not out of the way, and it would allow people staying on the west side of the city to get back to their hotels that much sooner.  At first, we ignored his offer, but the more I thought about it, I realized we should take advantage of the opportunity.  We didn’t have anything pre-planned to do tonight, so if we hopped off the bus at the first stop, we would be just a few blocks from Hyde Park and Kensington Palace.  I had considered going there on Tuesday morning before our flight home, but the more I thought about it, I realized it made more sense to check those places off the to-do list tonight while we were already so close by, and then we could do something else tomorrow.

Russell stopped the bus on a street corner across from the Gloucester Road tube station at 7:30pm.  We had officially spent 6 hours on that bus today, but amazingly, it did not feel as overwhelming as it sounds.  We really enjoyed our day with Evan Evans Tours.  Yes, we felt rushed in Windsor and in Bath.  Yes, we wished we could spend more time at each of the attractions.  Yes, we spent the same amount of time on that bus as we did off the bus exploring each destination.  But we knew what we were signing up for when we booked this tour, and we knew that if we wanted to see Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge in one day, then it would make for a very long day with only a limited glimpse at each of those places.  With that in mind, we checked off a few more places on our bucket list and we learned a lot about the history of this region.

With the help of Google Maps, we walked up towards Hyde Park.  This was a really pretty section of London and I wished we had more time to explore, but it was late, we were hungry, and we wanted to get to Kensington Palace before dark which meant dinner had to wait.  Hyde Park is huge, but we only had time to cut through a small section on the western edge. 

As we approached Kensington Palace, we could see lots of signs hanging on the exterior fence.  As it turned out, we were here on July 1, which was Princess Diana’s birthday, so there was a tribute set up for her on the fence.

By now, it was nearly 8pm and the palace had already closed for the day.  We weren’t planning to go inside anyway, but it would have been nice to walk around the grounds.  Unfortunately, the gates were locked and this was as close as we could get.

We were starving, so we didn’t stay long and left the park in search of somewhere to eat dinner.  I had seen photos of a pub nearby here on one of my social media feeds and wanted to eat dinner there.  As the crow flies, it seemed like it was very close by, but the way the roads go, we had to walk out of our way out to a main road, then double back in towards the pub.  We didn’t know the best way to exit the park, so we just started walking west away from Kensington Palace.  That brought us out to a beautiful tree-lined street called Kensington Palace Gardens.  This street is home to about 20 embassies for countries like Italy, France, Nepal, Lebanon, and Russia.  It felt like walking around Epcot Center in Disneyworld!  Country after country lined up next to each other, and it was fun to try to guess what country was coming up next!  That was an unexpected but fun way to pass the time as we walked towards dinner.

After nearly a mile of walking, we approached The Churchill Arms pub and I was immediately obsessed.  This building looked like something out of a fairy tale, with bright flowers covering the outer walls, and flags flying in the breeze on the roof.  There were tons of people standing outside, enjoying a pint while chatting with their friends.

We went inside, expecting to see what happened at most of the other pubs we visited this week… tons of people drinking outside, but no one eating dinner inside.  It was now 8:30pm on a Monday night, so you would think that was an off-peak time.  Nope!  It was sooooo crowded inside this pub and we didn’t see a single open table.  We walked through the whole pub to the back where there was a waiter with a clipboard for the waiting list and he said it would be a 30 minute wait to be seated.  It seemed like most people eating here were locals, so I found it kind of weird that it was so crowded this late on a work night… don’t these people have to go to work tomorrow morning??  By now, I was beyond starving and there was no way I could wait 30 minutes to be seated, plus even longer to get my food, so unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be and we had to leave.  Reviews online say this place serves good thai food, but I’ll have to come back another time if I want to try it.

As we were walking towards Churchill Arms, I noticed another pub called Old Swan further up the street, so we doubled back to check it out.  It was kind of hard to change mentalities because I was looking forward to thai food for dinner and now we’d be eating British food… again… but I was way too hungry to start wandering around to find somewhere different.  Old Swan was about one-third full, so there were enough locals eating here that we figured it must serve tasty food, but not so crowded that we’d have to wait for a table. 

The bartender told us to sit wherever we wanted, and to come see her at the bar to place our food and drink orders.  I ordered a cider (of course!) and a steak and ale pie.  It was pretty good, but honestly, I was so hungry that I would have thought a pile of cement tasted good haha

We finished up dinner around 9:30pm and just headed back to the hotel for the night.  In theory, we could have gone out to another pub, or explored the neighborhood a little more, or even walked up to Notting Hill which was just a few blocks away, but we were tired and still needed to pack up our bags before checking out of the hotel tomorrow morning.  If you remember back to our first day in London, I mentioned that DH had a mission to visit as many pubs as possible.  The qualification for if the pub “counted” in our tally was if we each had one drink at the pub, so the grand total for our 5 days in London came out to 11 pubs!  Not too shabby!

Luckily, we were very close by the Notting Hill Gate Underground Station, so we hopped on the Tube to get back to the hotel.

Fitbit Daily Summary… Steps: 19,502,  Miles: 9.41,  Flights of Stairs: 13 (not bad for a day when we spent 6 hours on a bus!!)