More about the London Walking Tour from Ruddick Tours

RAY RUDDICK's TOURS

'Great Tours of London, Britain & Ireland'

THE LONDON WALKING TOUR ...

A typical day ...

Begins at your Central London accommodation. I will meet your group leader a few minutes before the agreed starting time to discuss and organise the 'personalised' aspects of the tour - like any specific places which have been specially requested by the group and the group's preferred options for lunch. When the remainder of the party are assembled we begin with a personal introduction to London.

To give an idea of the 'flavour' of this type of tour, here's a diary of the day's events. A group of overseas students and their teacher met your man at their London hotel and this is what followed:

"First, our guide took us through a short safety briefing followed by a short walk to the nearest underground station. We got our travel passes here which we'd be using to travel the buses, the tube trains and the Dockland Railways. From outside the station we hopped onto a double-decker bus and a few minutes ride brought us to one of London's beautiful parks. The flowers and gardens were beautiful and we got some good photos. After a 10 minute stroll across the park we arrived at a parade ground and watched the Guards assembling. We got an interesting explanation of the Guards history and the duties they perform before we moved over to Buckingham Palace, photostop here, followed by another at St James' Palace where the Guard were marching to the Palace. Another short stroll across the park brought us to the colourful Horse Guards Changing the Guard ceremony.

Trafalgar Square followed, with some good photo opportunities of each other with the famous lions at Nelson's Column. We then took a look at the place where King Charles I was executed - the tale interestingly related by our guide. After passing some impressive Government buildings we came next to Downing Street for a glimpse of the Prime Minister's house, followed by the Old Scotland Yard Police HQ and finally the entrance to Winston Churchill's Wartime underground bunker. It was now late morning and we were happy to agree to the suggestion that we have a short stop for coffee or whatever. Our guide took us to a unique building which held the inaugural meeting of the UN in 1948.

After a ten minute drinks and 'comfort' stop we entered Westminster Abbey. Everyone agreed that this was one of the highlights of the day. Of course we know that the Abbey is one of the world's most famous churches, but we soon realised precisely why it has such a reputation. We saw so much, but I mainly remember the tomb of the Unknown Warrior; Winston Churchill's memorial; many, many graves and memorials, including Handel the composer; the great writers Dickens, Jonson, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Kipling and Hardy; plus Newton, Faraday, Darwin and others from the world of science; tombs of Queen Elizabeth I - she who gave her name to the American colony, 'Virgin-ia' , also 'Bloody' Mary, and why she got that unhappy nickname. We also 'saw' Mary Queen of the Scots, lots of 'Tudors', 'Stuarts' and some 'Hanoverian' Kings and Queens all within the most amazing architecture. I must say that our guide's description of the early monastery, the Coronation Ceremonies, the Royal Weddings, State Funerals - Princess Di, the Queen Mum - really brought everything together. Truly quite humbling to realise that this place has witnessed more than 900 years of momentous and historic events.

Our guide had arranged for us to take lunch nearby and we enjoyed a really unusual restaurant. It was a church crypt, but the food was actually excellent! Feeling much refreshed we headed off for a panoramic boat ride to the Tower of London. (We saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben on the way to the boat mooring). The river trip was a great chance to get lots of good pictures - in fact I used almost a whole roll of film in a 25 or 30 minute ride! We disembarked at the Tower of London and saw Traitor's Gate, Dead Man's Hole, St Katherine's Dock and heard all about the history of the Tower and its' surroundings. We then saw the execution site on Tower Hill, the memorials to Merchant Seamen of the World Wars, the church where two of America's leaders were married or baptised, and took a look at part of the Old Roman City wall.

We'd traveled by bus and boat so far, but now it was a railway on stilts which provided our transportation and some fine panoramic views as it carried us east to London's newest development - Canary Wharf in Docklands. Our guide called it 'New Manhattan' and when we got off the train and walked some of it's open areas, including a little park, and saw the waterside bars, cafes and restaurants, all surrounded by towering buildings, I could see why he was so reminded. Although all of Docklands seems to be totally new and 'right up there 21st Century' it actually incorporates an infrastructure which must be one of the most historic in the world. When Great Britain had her Empire covering so much of the world and around a quarter of its people, a massive amount of trade and much of the goods and merchandise connected with it came through these docks from every corner of the world. Very impressive and lots more great shots!

Back on the train we had just a ten minute ride to Greenwich. There we saw the Cutty Sark sailing clipper, the village market, the Maritime Museum and walked across the park to visit the Royal Observatory. The '0' Longitude line is here (or 'Greenwich Meridian' as they call it), and it was fun to take photos of ourselves with one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one foot in the West. There was more interesting stuff inside the museum and some excellent stories about navigation, time-keeping and star maps and the men who advanced the scientific knowledge.

Believe it or not we had been on the tour for almost 7 hours now, but the time had really flown by. Because we had taken lots of stops and rests, and frequent sit down opportunities on the bus/boat/train I didn't feel like it had really been a 'walking' tour at all. Our trip concluded with a 20 minute or so ride back to the West End of London on the new Jubilee Line underground train. We parted with our guide and thanked him before making our way back to our hotel. To sum it all up? How about, "A really cool experience, and I learned a lot. Awesome!"

Enquire about this taking a group on this tour here