Tower of London

We thought we would have an early start, but had a hard time getting our assess out of bed this morning.  So it was a later start than we anticipated. We headed to Kilburn station - bought our oyster passes for the tube and we were off to the Tower of London.  We arrived just before lunch so of course we had to eat again before we could enter.
Finally we were in the tower just before noon.  We started off at the wall walk- pretty impressive views- although a little chilly!  We walked all the way to the animal display- who knew so many animals passed through the tower.  Then we found ourselves at the crown jewels- they really are stunning and so shiny.  We loved the armoury with all the armour- including that for the horses mind you.  There were a raven or 2 flying around and they are big birds close up.  The bloody tower was pretty gruesome- all those torture devices.  Finally about 3 hours later we were done.
We headed toward tower bridge and walked over to the southbank.
Strolling along we passed the HMS Belfast- a huge war ship and then found ourselves at the Borough market- the most delicious smells were coming from the vendors.  I had not had lunch earlier and was famished - a pork on the spit sandwich with apple sauce- don't mind if I do.  Carrying along the southbank we saw the Golden Hind, the globe theatre and the clink street- all before we reached the millennium bridge.  We crossed back over and up to St Paul's Cathedral- we got there just in time to have missed the final admittance- bummer.  We headed down into the crypt and found lovely cafe serving tea and scones- so we sat a while and warmed up.
The girls were now hungry as we approached dinner time- we hopped on the tube to Oxford Circus- well that was a crazy zoo!! We saw some McDonalds arches in the distance and headed off there to wait out the rush hour. The girls munched and I surfed the net not the free wifi.  After that wonderful dinner we headed to Hamley's toy store- apparently the biggest in the world- 6 stories and it contains over 52,000 types of toys- wow.  While ogling all the toys who should walk by but Nicholas Cage and his son!  Pretty cool- we stalked them for a while and then after 1.5 hours in the store we were done.
*side note day 2- we had another jacket fail today.  Delaney had her jacket on only to discover that the damn zipper was broken- so we popped into H&M on Oxford and got her a cute jacket in the clearance section for 7 pounds.  It was pretty cold today so jackets are a must and ones that zipper close a bonus!
After the toy store we walked down to Piccadilly Circus- had a look around and then decided we were exhausted and were right at the Piccadilly circus underground- so home we headed.  We arrived home at 8ish- pooped and ready for bed.