I made a trip to England nine years ago to visit some friends up near the Lake District, and when I arrived at Gatwick Airport in London, I got a call saying that they would not be home until the next day. They had been vacationing in Holland and were delayed, so they asked if I could stay in a hotel for the night and meet up with them the next day.
I told them that I certainly could do that, but then it hit me that since it was still morning, it would be a perfect day to tour London, with most of the day to do so. I told them about my plan, and they thought it was a great idea, so I said I would just stay in a hotel in London that night and take a coach up to their home the next day.
What I ended up learning pretty early on is that it would take much longer than a single day to tour London in its entirety, so I just decided to take in what I could and plan future trips to the city to discover more. I decided to start out by going to Westminster.
This is where all of the touristy stuff is, such as the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and so forth, but I was a tourist, after all, and I wanted to make sure that I could tell people that I had seen all of those things when I got back from England.
I spent the day seeing as much of the city as I could, and what struck me the most about it was how effectively the city seemed to weave the old and the new together. When I decided to tour London, I had no idea that I was going to be able to see such architectural beauty mixed in with a modern metropolis, but in many respects, that is exactly what it is.
When I went to have lunch, I met up with another American who told me a little bit about the city. He said he had lived there for about 10 years and loved it. I told him about my plans to tour London that day, and he was kind enough to take the rest of the day off and show me some of the other attractions, such as Piccadilly Circus.
When I got back to Victoria station, I asked about some local hotels and found a good one. As I rode to the hotel on the train, I thought about my day of sight-seeing and how much I had taken in, and it was kind of overwhelming. I don't think it is possible to tour London in a single day, but I did get to see a good part of the city, and I can say with complete certainty that I will be going back.