A City Of Many Worlds

The Best thing to do is go on an open top bus tour around london. get a day pass on it that way you can hop on and off different tour busses. one passes ever 20 minutes. it allows you to have closer looks at the likes of Buckingham Palace (Royal Family), Westminister (Government), Good Ole Big Ben (Clock Tower), 10 Downing Street (Prime Minister), and of course Tower Bridge, London Bridge and Trafalger Square, also if you go to trafalger square mind where you step there are 1000's of pigeons here.

London Zoo is a must--see my artical on it for more detail.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

The best way to get around London is to rent a car. You get onto the M25, which is the Orbital Motorway around London. You can get to anywhere in London quick and easy by using it. Buses are brilliant--always on time and very quick.

Harvester are like McDonalds only not fast food. The best way to describe a Harvester is a steak house meets Homemade food.

When you arrive at a Harvester the first thing you will notice is the warm log fire and a staff member to greet you and give you a warm welcome.

The menu is very appetizing. My recomendation is to try the 'stack of ribs', and pick them up with your hands and eat them the traditional way. No Cutlery for ribs... its a rule. :) They have mixed meals, "The Harvester Combo", which include a stack of ribs, half a roast chicken and chips with a side salad. These are my personal favourites. Pick one of the combos that suits your appetite.

Basically the menu has chicken, hamburgers, ribs, steak, etc. Whatever you choose you won't be dissapointed. There are free refills for the minerals, Cola, Orange, Sprite, and Pepsi. Kids get a colouring page with crayons. and it is very much a family atmosphere.

While your food is being prepared you can go to the salad bar where you can get as many salads as you can eat at no extra cost.

Now on to desserts. These are huge, try the "Arctic Ice Bomb" and spoil yourself. It is a dream. You get a giant eclair with ice cream, caramel and toffee sauce on top. It is devine. The banana split is also divine, and it is also huge. The desserts in general are fantastic.

The service is very quick, friendly and efficient. Your food is on your table in under 10 minutes. It is a reasonable price to pay for a memorable experience. I have travelled to london for twelve years and I go back every time.

Harry’s is basically the fish and chips capital of the modern world. Many take the Harry Ramstens Challenge which includes a huge fish as big as a whale and a plate of chips. Not many people succeed. I was barely successful and I got a certificate for my heroic performance.

The atmosphere is warm and friendly, and very efficent. Your food is on your table in 10 minutes.

Desserts are very nice. Death By Chocolate is my favourite. It is a huge slice of chocolate cake with chocolate sauce on top.

The price is very reasonable and a good value.

Planet Hollywood is the film memorabilia center of London. It has good food and sovenirs from films going way back to the 60’s. Items included the motorcycles from Rocky, Grease and other films.

One thing I noticed, it was very expensive for a burger. It was $15, which to me, wasn't good value for what I got. The food was only average. I would sooner go to a Harvester.

This visit to Planet Hollywood was strictly a one-off experience.

Lakeside Shopping Centre boasts over 320 shops, four major departments stores, 30 cafes and restaurants, a seven screen multiplex cinema, a chapel, and a 26 acre lake complete with PADI certified diving school complex. The neighboring Lakeside Retail Park has over 40 large stores.

Due to customer demand, Lakeside is the first shopping centre to introduce permanent extended weekday opening hours of 10am - 10pm.

Lakeside has an average of 500,000 visitors per week and over 160 million people have visited Lakeside since it opened in October 1990.

Lakeside has parking for 13,000 cars and 250 coaches.

Together, Lakeside Retail Park and Lakeside Shopping Centre form Europe's largest retail area.

The retail park has a fantastic offering of warehouse style superstores, furniture emporiums, car showrooms, and a UCI cinema.

Madam Tussaud's is world renowned for its realistic wax models. Founded about 170 years ago the artist used to create the realistic models out of sown leather. today in the age of technology the models are made of of a mixture of rubber and fibreglass. even today all models are created by hand.

I was there a long time ago. As a child I was facinated with celebretarys and seeing michael jackson life size was amazing. You can take a history tour in a london taxi, and it will take you from past to present showing how the models used to be created and how they are today it is quiet amazing.

Seeing Sean Connery as James Bond, Michael Caine, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and hundreds more. Madam Tussauds just unveiled a Michelle Quan the world renowned figure skater and the real michelle posed identically as the model and the audience couldn't identify the real michelle until she moved. It was quite amazing. Madam Tussaud's is currently doing a US tour and has excibitions in New York and Los Angeles.

The London Museum is such a treat. It is a museum of artists magnificant works of art. My favourite wax model had to be Yoda from Starwars--he is so cool.

Crowds can vary busy and quiet. I went when it was in between. But from what I hear the best time to go is in the morning.

Tickets for the event were £5 approx $10 so today would be within 10-20 dollars per person.

This was my favourite part of the tour of london seeing Possibly the most famous clock face and chimes in the world the building is officially known as St Stephen's Tower, but which is more commonly referred to as Big Ben. "Big Ben" is actually the name of the largest bell inside the clock tower, which forms part of the Houses of Parliament. It is thought that the name comes from Sir Benjamin Hall who was commissioner of works when the bell was first installed in 1858. The accuracy of the clock movement is controlled by the placing of old pennies in the mechanism.

Downing Street is a rather unimpressive little side street off Whitehall. It used to be even less impressive, and you could actually walk along it, until Margaret Thatcher, fearful of terrorist actions, had huge iron gates added to keep the proletariat out.

Number 10 Downing Street is the official residence of the Prime Minister, and it is here that much of the inner circle of the Cabinet meet to decide teh fate of those staring through the gates outside.

Number 11 Downing Street is the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though usually it isn't quite so much in the news as it's neighbour, except on budget day when the Chancellor emerges carryng the traditional battered red attache case containing the bad news.

The Millennium dome was an amazing sight. It looks huge from the outside, and seems far bigger on the inside. Filled with lots of education exhibits it was very informative. I was there for new years for the millenium and the shows were quiet amazing, from acrobat demonstrations games and entertainment. We were not disappointed.