London 2014 (Alfie's Birthday)

I'm Tim's nephew, Alfie. I've been learning about London at school and was talking to Uncle Tim about the Great Fire of London, which happened in 1666. My Dad thought it would be a good idea for us to visit London. Nana and Grandad wanted to pay for us to have a nice weekend because we worked very hard when they were on holiday to redecorate their lounge. Mum and Dad are coming with me and so are Uncle Tim and Auntie Clare. Uncle Rob and Shanie decided to come with us too.

London is really, really big. You have to travel on these trains that go under the ground. It's called the Tube. Sometimes it was quite busy but at other times it was quiet and we could all sit down.

One thing I really like is dinosaurs so Uncle Tim took us all to the Natural History Museum. Here's me with a Tyrannosaurus Rex!

There were lots of other dinosaurs and interesting animals there too. If you click on one of the images below you can see some more photos that we took from the Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum has so much inside that we'll have to come back another day to see everything.

Afterwards we got on the Tube to Green Park and walked through it because we wanted to see Buckingham Palace. Uncle Tim showed me something called the Victoria Memorial because we could see it from a distance. Queen Victoria reigned for 64 years. That's even longer than Queen Elizabeth II has! Here's a photo of me and my Mum on the memorial:

And here are Dad and me in front of Buckingham Palace. The flag was raised so that meant that the Queen was in!

We came back to Buckingham Palace the next day too to watch the changing of the guards. You can see some more photos that we took around Buckingham Palace by clicking on one of the following images:

After seeing Buckingham Palace we walked along a street called the Birdcage, which runs alongside St James's Park. The lake has lots of fish and birds, including pelicans. They don't normally come from our part of the world but the Russian Ambassador gave them as a gift to King Charles II in 1664 and they're still here.

If you follow the Birdcage for a few minutes you arrive at Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. My favourite bit was hearing Big Ben!

Afterwards we went to see the River Thames and then walked up a big street where we saw the Cenotaph (which is where people lay flowers to remember soldiers who have died) and Downing Street, which is where the Prime Minister lives. There were some statues of some famous men riding horses, but there weren't any that were as tall as the one at Trafalgar Square of Admiral Nelson. Uncle Tim told me that he died in a famous battle and that he had only one arm and one eye. If you look at the statue closely you can see that his right sleeve is tucked into his jacket.

We'd done lots of walking and so we decided to get some food and then travel back to the apartment. There must've been something wrong with the food because Tim, Shanie and I were all poorly afterwards. We didn't let it stop us going out the next day though because we had some more really interesting places that we wanted to visit.

I really enjoy machines so I wanted to go to the Science Museum. Mum, Shanie and Rob didn't want to go there though. We were lucky because they all wanted to go to a shop called Harrods, which Uncle Tim calls Horrids, so they went there whilst Dad, Clare, Tim and I went to the Science Museum.

There are so many really interesting things in the Science Museum that I don't even know where to start! Look at all these cars stacked up in a pile:

And there were all sorts of steam trains too. This one is the first one ever built. It's called the Rocket:

We even saw lunar modules that had visited the Moon!

We only had time to see one floor of the Science Museum so we'll definitely have to come back another day to see everything else. You can see some more photos that we took by clicking on any of the images below:

We wanted to spend much longer at the Science Museum but had to rush off because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We bumped into Mum, Rob and Shanie at Green Park. This time there were lots more people that yesterday. They must all have had the same idea! My Dad's tall and so I sat on his shoulders so that I could see everything.

After this we went on the Tube again to visit St Paul's Cathedral. I'd heard all about it at school because it was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. It's very big and what you notice most is a huge dome on top of it:

Every side of it is really big! You can barely see me, Mum and Dad standing in front of it in this photo:

You can see some more photos of St Paul's by clicking on one of the images below:

We got some pizza at a restaurant across the road from St Paul's. This was much nicer than the meal we had on the evening before. Uncle Rob ate my dessert again, just like he did last night!

Soon after leaving St Paul's we saw the Bank of England. Rising above it was a building that looks like a rocket, called the Gherkin:

The Bank of England was another very big building. Everything in London seems huge!

I was getting even more excited now because Tim said that if we walked for three or four minutes we would find something that's very tall called the Monument to the Great Fire of London. We turned a corner and there it was, very near to the place where the fire started:

Tim asked me to tell my Mum about the Great Fire and so I told her that it started when Thomas Farriner's bakery caught fire one night. Tim asked me what the street was called and so I answered "Pudding Lane". Tim said my prize for getting it right is that we could see Pudding Lane and he showed me where it was!

We were very close to London Bridge and could see a very tall building called the Shard. People can pay to go near the top of it and see out over London:

Best of all was the view when we stepped a little further along London Bridge. Suddenly we could see HMS Belfast, as well as the Tower of London and Tower Bridge behind it:

Wow! Uncle Tim asked me what I wanted to do next. He said we could take a tour of the Tower, travel along the river in a boat, go onto HMS Belfast, or take an open-top bus ride. I wanted to go on the bus but then we found out that it would cost £29 each and take three hours! That's a lot of money and we didn't have that much time, so we boys decided to go on HMS Belfast whilst the girls went to a cafe.

Everything under the deck is narrow, noisy and very hot. I don't think any of us wanted to be sailors and we felt very sorry for the men who had to fight in the Second World War, the Korean War and the Falklands War. It took a long time to go around everything.

Things were much better on deck or above it. The captain had a nice view and lot more room than the sailors. There was a nice man on board who let me be the captain for the day:

You can see lots more photos taken during our tour of HMS Belfast by clicking one of the images below:

After that we had to take the Tube one last time. Uncle Tim knew a pub next to the train station so we went there for ten minutes because the grown-ups were very hot. My Dad was so hot that he drank two beers in about five minutes! Uncle Tim decided he would drink a beer called Village Idiot, which made him laugh.

Soon we caught the train and came home. We had seen a lot even though we only arrived the afternoon before. I think it was a really good idea that my Dad had to come to London for a treat for my birthday. I really enjoyed it and hope I can come back another day with my Dad to see more of the Science Museum and Natural History Museum. I would really like to visit the Tower of London too!