Our last couple of days in London were wonderful. Saturday morning was a new experience for all of us again which was fun. We had a tour of the Palace of Westminster! This is where the seat of British politics takes place, and it was super cool to see. It was fun walking in past the gate; we had a view of Big Ben that's not available to everyone.
The huge entryway hall is unbelievable. It was built almost 1,000 years ago in 1097. Think about how much history has happened since this has been standing. Woah.
The tour was incredible. However, they won't let you take any pictures outside of the Great Hall. I understand why, but I still wish we could. Our tour took us through some pretty incredible places. we saw the Norman Porch, Robing Room, Royal Gallery, Central Lobby, House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Our guide was quite knowledgeable, and we learned all sorts of interesting historical facts while here. I'm so glad we did this.
When the tour was over, we started heading towards Covenant Garden for an afternoon show. We knew we needed some lunch, and thought we'd just stop along the way. Well, we stumbled upon The Admiralty in Trafalgar's Square which was quite welcoming of Atlanta Falcons fans in front of Sunday's game. We knew we had to eat lunch here!
We all had thoroughly enjoyed some pretty British foods for lunch. Ryan and Lily shared a charcuterie tray filled with British cheeses and meats. Mia enjoyed another fish and chips plate. I loved my chicken, bacon, and leek pie with mashed potatoes, and walnut salad. This was such a delicious and fun lunch spot!
After lunch we made our way to His Majesty's Theater for a matinee performance of The Phantom of the Opera. We all love this one. We saw last year in New York before it closed; we knew we wanted the girls to see it in London too. There is something about when that chandelier rises and the organ starts playing...it's so good!
When the show was over we found another little Pizza Express (seriously, it's really good Roman pizza!) and ate a small dinner there. We made time to stop in Covenant Garden at Knoops for hot chocolate and Mooboo for bubble tea as a treat too. From there we walked over to Theater Royal Drury Lane to enjoy Frozen. Ryan absolutely adores the musical theater actress Samantha Barks. She's incredible! When we booked this trip in June, we excitedly booked tickets to Frozen because she's been playing Elsa. It was only a few weeks later that Samantha posted on Insta how excited she was that her cast mates threw her a baby shower. Yep, she's currently on maternity leave and not in the show. Oh well. It's still such a well done show, and our stall seats were really good. It would have been amazing to see Samantha here, but this was still a very fun performance to watch.
It was another late night before we made it back to the hotel. We slept in a little bit on Sunday, and then we enjoyed a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. From there, we headed out to Wembley Stadium to see our Falcons take on the Jacksonville Jaguars! This is actually what started the whole idea for this trip. When we realized the Falcons would be playing in London at the end of Fall Break, we thought "now that sounds like a good idea." How cool to get to go to such an iconic stadium to watch your team play?!
The Jag's mascot bungeed in from the ceiling right in front of us!
We had fantastic seats for this game.
Well, it wasn't the outcome we wanted as the Falcons lost 23-7, but it sure was a fun experience. Tom Grennan put on a great halftime show. I'm so glad we did this, and I'm even glad we stood in two really long souvenir lines so I could get my cute London Falcons shirt (thanks for your patience fam!).
We left the stadium and ended up back in the Covenant Garden area to grab a little dinner. Lucky us to make it back to Mooboo bubble tea and Knoops hot chocolate one last time!
After this last treat, it was time to head on back to the hotel and start packing up all our items. We had quite a few souvenirs that we needed to fit in somewhere!
Eventually, we got it all together and headed to bed. We woke up early to start the journey back home. We took a taxi from the airport to Paddington Station where we then got on the Heathrow Express back out to the airport. We made our flight and settled in for the ride home. It was a full day ride, so there was a lot of reading, movies, podcasts, and music to enjoy. We realized we had averaged about 18K-19K steps per day which is right about 6 miles. We were absolutely exhausted, but in the best possible way. We had to get right back to work and school the next day; that made for a long week. Even still, I wouldn't have changed one thing about this trip. It was absolutely wonderful. I am so very thankful for a family that loves to travel and have adventures together!
