Where was I?  Oh yea, the boat tour.  (It is still Thursday, June 12th)  The ticket stand is on the river behind the London Eye.  It was a grand way to see city Central.  We got great views of the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and more bridges.  There are many, many bridges across the River Thames. The Tower Bridget in this pic is the most majestic especially when seen from the river.

Many people often mistake this bridge for the London Bridge and probably because the latter is very dull and boring.   See for yourself.  I took a picture when we went under it on the river boat tour as the name is etched in the concrete foundation. 

The current London Bridge, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. This replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first built by the Roman founders of London.  The previous bridge which was built in 1831 was dismantled in 1967when it was determined it could no longer support the heavy load of traffic.  The City of London sold this bridge to Robert McCulloch, of McCulloch Oil Corporation, who is the founder of Lake Havasu City, AZ.  He had the bridge dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt in 1971, and links an island in the Colorado River with the main part of Lake Havasu City.  Other than the historical significance of the London Bridge being rebuilt in AZ, I would not go out of my way to see it.  

Wouldn't you agree the Tower Bridge ( below) is the more spectacular?  Well, enough of the history lesson.  London, as you can well imagine, is full of historical significance and there is so much to see and I am already overwhelmed.  Big Ben in foreground and Westminster Abby in background where royal weddings are held. 

The river boat tour was a neat way to see the sights...sort of like a hop on hop off bus on water except no hopping off.  Oh, that was next but I will save that for tomorrows (June 13) adventure.

So after a 9 hour plane trip and three hours of touring, we were beat and decided to head back to the hotel and prepare for dinner.   We stopped at a local neighborhood grocery near the Marriott hotel where we were staying and bought a couple bottles of wine to take to our room ready to settle in for the night.  We are Marriott Rewards members so staying at a Marriott we can use the concierge lounge which we planned to use as our dinner spot.  But by the time we got back to the room, enjoyed our wine and got caught up some with Michael and Chuck it was late.  So when we got to the lounge there was only snacks but some marvelous cheese and crackers and also free wine.  Oh my, I'm loving this life already.

Back to the room and go online to the BA lost luggage website again to see about our "not found" luggage.  It is not lost yet according to BA so cannot call it lost luggage....still tracing they say.   Since we had bought a couple London t-shirts today, we figured this would get us through tomorrow hoping the luggage will appear tomorrow (Fri.) as we do not leave London until Sat. morning on an early bus to Dover to board the cruise ship to Norway and the Midnight Sun.

Tah tah for now. Check back for the rest of London in the next log.