10 Places You'll See on a Bus Tour of London

When I organized a Europe Trip with my junior high students two years ago, I had a huge, long list of the places and things I wanted to see in London, which was one of our stops. The travel company that was responsible for taking care of my lovely students and I did their best to accommodate my demands, and I ended up seeing or visiting virtually all of the places on my list.

Ride the Chunnel

Tunnels are fun places. Every kid loves to crawl inside them, engineers dream of building the perfect one, treasure hunters covet them and what they may contain. I used to hold my breath every time we drove through one on family vacations, particularly while driving through the Rocky Mountians of British Columbia, where tunnel after tunnel gobble up the highway. If you made it through the entire tunnel without letting go of that breath, well, I'm not sure what you'd get but it was always a challenge.

Visit Windsor Castle and Maybe see the Queen

It's British fever these days, what with the Royal Wedding hot in the news: William and Kate, Pippa and her show-stealing dress, and those oh-so-cute miniature flower girls. So I thought, what better time to talk about visiting Windsor Castle, home of the Queen and her royal family?

Ride the London Eye

Photo: Nico Trinkhaus London Eye and Westminster, England -CC-BY-NC

I spy with my little eye... something ginormous! That would be the London Eye, a giant sightseeing Ferris wheel-type contraption on the south bank of the River Thames in London, England. This machine looms over the river and offers a wonderful view of London by lifting its passengers 135 meters into the sky, slo-o-o-wly, then lowers them back down again. Passengers sit or stand comfortably inside the Eye's giant pods, which can hold up to 28 people. Distant photographs show the London Eye as being deceptively small - the wheel itself is huge and the pods spacious and restful.

Visit the Tower of London's Creepy London Dungeon Wax Museum

When I was sixteen, I went to England to visit a pen pal. I'd been writing to my friend Graeme from the age of 11 or 12, when I'd met him at a family friend's birthday party. I thought it was terribly exciting that I had a friend in England, and even more so when I found out I was able to visit him the summer before I began Grade 11!