Category: England, Belgium and France

Clint and I left on another adventure on the 25 April 2025. Our itinerary included two Trafalgar Tours as well as time on our own. First stop, London, for a week on our own, before joining a bus trip for a WWI and WWII Battlefield 12 day tour. This tour left London, went to Belgium and ended in Paris. When we arrived in Paris, we were on our own for about 12 days. After that, we joined a second Trafalgar bus tour, called Best of France, 11 day tour, so we were able to get a broader view of the country. We were gone 5 weeks and then headed home to Toronto from Paris. So, first stop………London…. and we really enjoyed this city.

We did book quite a few tourist attractions before we left Canada and then we booked a couple of more things when we got to London. The world is getting crazy busy now and I recommend booking certain tourist spots in advance, it saves being disappointed. Just for info, London is about 5 hours ahead of where we live in Canada. We arrived at our London hotel late afternoon staying at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, London King’s Cross for 8 days. It was a nice location, easy to walk to a lot of places and there was a street not too far that had some nice restaurants and pubs. While we were here we went to Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Parliament, British Museum, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, Westminster Abbey, Churchill War Rooms and more. Here are some miscellaneous photos as we were out and about. We also went to the Canadian Embassy, we always try to at least see our Embassy wherever we go. We had a nice visit inside and the guard told us about a Canadian Sports bar right around the corner so of course we headed there!

Ship’s Tavern Bar County Hall Courage Brewery Sherlock Holmes Bar

We went to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard but there was a marathon race on the property and so it was cancelled but we wandered around the area anyways. I believe I read that the Palace is only open in July and August for visitors so we did not go in. We saw the Canada Gates which were gifted by Canada in the early 20th century as part of the Queen Victoria Memorial. The Gates have designs of Canadian Provincial crests and are located near the Hyde Park Corner Tube station. They were quite impressive.

The County Hall and the National Gallery were both pretty impressive buildings as well.

So that’s a lot for the first post on London, stay tuned for more !