July 20 – Hampton Court and the London Eye

Liam really wanted to see a maze while in Europe so today we took the train out to Hampton Court where they have the oldest maze in England.  There were a lot of groups of school children on the train so we decided to head straight to the maze to beat the crowd.  The maze actually isn’t that large. 

The gardens there are lovely although they were slightly past their peak blooming season.  And the grass is quite dry and brown as they need rain.  We only skirted the edge of the gardens and didn't really explore then much.

Liam was hungry so we stopped at a café in the palace and had a snack.  From there we spent a bit of time seeing some of the palace, mainly the Henry the Eighth apartments.

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More Hampton Court
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Then we headed back to the train station where Mary noticed some lovely gardenish sayings on the benches.

We caught the train back to London fairly early as we want to be back in time for our timed skip-the-line tickets at the London Eye.  When we got to the Eye the park and plaza was a mass of people.  So glad we had skip-the-line tickets.  

From the Eye we had great views of the Thames River.  We could see Buckingham Palace,

the Houses of Parliament and across the street, Elizabeth's Tower that houses Big Ben,

and a group of architecturally interesting buildings in the City of London...the Shard,

the Cheese Grater and the Walkie Talkie.

And there were good views of bridges along the Thames.

The colorful umbrellas of a nearby restaurant.

Liam on The Eye. 

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More Views from the London Eye
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After that Liam had had enough sightseeing for the day and we went back to the hotel.  He is good when we are out sightseeing, but he has no interest in prolonging the experience.