We were going to go to Paris this year for a fun trip, but due to some excellent fare war, round trip tickets to London were so durned cheap, we decided to go back to England (having been there before). As a public service, I feel compelled to warn all potential travelers to avoid the sucker deal that is the "Heathrow Express". You get off a plane confused and sleep deprived, wander around looking for the Tube, and instead find yourself on a cushy train (with TVs...) that jets you to the middle of London, which would be fine, exept that you end up paying, like, $40.00 bucks for the 10 minute ride. Oh, the humanity! Just find the Tube.

This here is the giant Millenium Ferris wheel. It is really big--400 feet tall. It is on the bank of the Thames, kind of right across from Big Ben. As opposed to the Millenium Dome (which is up the river in Greenwich, and closed now), which was regarded as a vast national embarassment, this here giant ferris wheel seemed to be rather popular. You have to get tickets a day or so ahead, and then wait on line for a long time.

From the top of the ferris wheel. Those cars are more or less subway sized. The whole ride takes about half an hour. It is really kind of cool. It isn't a fast ride, but quite the spectacle.

This is a picture of me standing in front of the Prisoner's house. The Prisoner is one of the best tv shows ever, and this is the building that was used as Patrick McGoohan home in London in the opening credits of every show (and the one he escapes to a few times). It is right around the corner from Buckingham Palace (1 Buckingham Place), and is sadly now a bunch of offices. Being a big geek, I was more or less required to find this place. Luckily, as it is so close to the Palace, you can claim to have accidentally stumbled across it...

Here I am standing in front of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It is really tall, and has some cool dead folk burried inside, like Admiral Nelson, Henry Moore, and William Blake.

This is a view from the top of Saint Paul's. It is really high up--you need to walk up, like, 500 tiny little steps to get there. We were weak, so it made us really tired.

After wandering around in London for a few days, we took a train to Bath, which is a very cool little city. This is the river Avon. Apparently in Bath, everyone goes home at about 6:00pm.

In yet another picture of Caitlin in front of something, we see the bubbling hot springs of the Roman Bath (and thus the city of Bath...). The Romans built this vast temple on top of a hot spring, and the English unearthed it at some point. The waters were used for the restorative qualities, and to this end, you can buy a glass for 50p. Umm. Warm, minerally water.

This fabulous picture is of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. This place is hysterical. You pay 3 pounds to get in, and get to hear a talk from a very nice woman about how this very building is not at all unlike a building that Jane Austen actually lived in, and then you get to look at a bunch of exhibits that are filled with things that are very similar to objects used by and places visited by Jane Austen. Actually very amusing.

From Bath, we took this excellent tour of the English country side from the Mad Max tour company (we heartily endorse this company, so if you find yourself going to Bath, make sure you hook up with them--you can find contact information in the Rick Steves travel in England book). So yeah, this is Stonehenge, where the Demons dwell. Going to Stonehenge is kind of surprising, as you are driving along some highway right next to a millitary firing range, and suddenly WHAM, there is Stonehenge right on the side of the highway. All those stories you hear about chain link fences are completely exagerated. Yeah, you have to pay the English National Park organization 4 pounds to go see it, but once you get there, you can get rather close. All that keeps you from walking right up to the stones is a short rope around the site, and your own sense of decency.

See, you can get pretty close to the actual rocks. All in all, it strikes me as perfectly acceptable that there aren't people crawling all over the thing, as it is really old.

This here is another stop on the tour we were on--Avebury. Avebury is a much larger but somewhat less spectacular stone circle than Stonehenge. The town of Avebury is built around (and in many cases, out of), this 4000 year old stone circle and the vast bank and ditch system (which is what a "henge" is, a ring of deep ditch and surrounding bank. Stonehenge had one of these at some point as well). Most of the stones are still there, but a great number of them were used as building material for the town.