Im writing this on the ferry from England to France, on route to Amsterdam eventually, its midday Europe time.

Checked out of my hotel and into the land of Contiki at 6:45 this morning. Seems to be a good group of people so far from what I can tell. But time will tell. My main bag had to be under 20kg, and it came in at 19.7kg, hell yeah.

I seemed to have taken most of London in while I was there, all the important parts anyway.

Most important of all to me was getting to watch the Tour de France. And not just watch it, but be front row and get some of the best photos i’ve ever taken. Seeing the guys do a time trial in real life, at the speed at which they can push their bikes, is incredible. Making the wait for the Pyrenees and Paris even harder.

Apart from that I fitted in all the tourist things. I sat in front of Buckingham Palace for 6hrs and a further 3hrs watching the race, so I know it pretty well. Saw the changing of the guards, not bad to watch, little boring. The building or whatever it is where they keep the Horse Guards actually opened its doors for the first time in history when I was there. Was funny watching tourists walk up to the stationary guards getting photos, and them being petrified that they were going to attack them. They obviously don’t realise that they aren’t allowed to move.

Trafalgar Square was visited numerous times, being a pretty central place to get to a lot of other things. Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey were taken in. Who would have thought that a giant clock would be so popular.

Went on the London Eye as well. Good views, but the glass ruins the photos unfortunately. I bought my tickets online the night before, so all I had to do was walk in go straight to a ticket machine put my credit card in and the ticket was printed. Didn’t have to wait at all.

Went to Nike Town a few times. They had all the 10//2 and Tour gear. Bought a few jerseys and bits and pieces. Fred Perry had a sale, bought some fancy schmancy stuff. Even on sale, polos are still 35 pounds…

Yesterday I made my way to Tower Hill, to see London Tower and Tower Bridge. Apparently the castle that I was looking at for ages is the London Tower, where as I was looking for an actual tower. Maybe London Castle might be a better name. Or maybe there was a tower. I got no idea. The bridge is pretty damn cool. Nice old school castle-ish style. Made for some great photos.

Caught the train back to my hotel room at about midnight, went to bed. Got to the Royal National for Contiki at 7am. We drove south to get on the Ferry and now that’s where im at…