Michael and Matt saw us off at the Portland airport.   The connections were good but the flight was long and we didn't get as much sleep that we wanted so it was a very long first day.

This is were we are staying while in London.  The Lime Tree Hotel and next to it to the right is the Ebury Restaurant and Wine Bar where we had our first dinner in London.  More on that later.

After checking into the Lime Tree, we did the "Big Bus" tour.   It took us a couple of tries to get on the correct bus.  Do you have any idea of how many tour buses there are?  A lot.  Then we forgot we wanted the Red route as opposed to the Blue route which took even more time to get started.

Once we were on our way we saw many of London's iconic images.

We rode on the top of the bus for the tour.  We were fortunate that it wasn't raining which our initial forecast from Portland indicated.  But it was cold and at the end of the day when the sun was going down.

Can you say "traffic"!  It was truly amazing to watch the tour bus navigate the roads without killing anybody.  At times the buses were so close, I could have reached and touch them at times.  The road is shared by all, buses, cars, cabs, bikes, motorcycles and people.

The tour was over 2 hours long and here is Big Ben in two different types of light.

We had planned on getting off and on the Big Bus and walking but we decided to call it a day and go get some dinner.

We started with a little bread and wine.

Asparagus salad.

Soup

For the main, I had a mushroom risotto.

And Sharon had the cod.

All and all, it has been a good beginning.  Normally Sharon is the wordsmith, but she's sleeping and I crashed last night when I was suppose to be putting up pictures.

On to day number 2 shortly.