United Kingdom - 2004

In 2004 we had out third around-the-world trip.
In 54 days we travelled to Auckland, Tahiti, Easter Island, Santiago, Lima, Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Sillustani
Lake Titicaca, Puno, Cusco, Sacsayhuman, Tambomachay, Machu Picchu, Aguas Calientes, Sacred Valley, Ollantaytambo,
Posada Amazonas, Ica, Nazca, Paracas, Ballestas Islands, Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, Itaipu Dam, Rio de Janeiro,
London, St. Petersburg and Singapore.

We flew with British Airways from Rio Janeiro in Brazil via São Paulo to London.
We spent 2 nights in London.

 

 

London

 

An English breakfast.

 

 

 

 

We stayed at the Master Robert Hotel at Hounslow, near Heathrow.

 

Was it named after our son-in-law?

 

 

 

 

 

A typical London duplex.

 

 

We caught the "Tube" into Central London.

 

We spent most of the day at the Natural History Museum.

 

 

The museum had outstanding collections. The items on display were perfect examples.

 

They had an excellent dinosaur collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A human spinal cord.


 

 

 

After spending nearly all day at the Natural History Museum we caught the "tube" to the Thames Embankment.

A gift from Egypt, it was erected here in 1878.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Next to Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column.

 

 

 

 

 

St. Martin's in the Field near Trafalgar Square.

 

 

The National Gallery on the side of Trafalgar Square.

From Heathrow we were due to fly out to Helsinki and on to St. Petersburg at 7:30am. After getting up at 4:30am and checking in at Heathrow OK, they announced that the air traffic control computer had crashed and that there could be up to a 4 hour delay on all flights.

We boarded the Finnair flight on time. They did the right thing and served us breakfast while we were waiting. We eventually took off at 9:15am for the 2½ flight.

This was the only one of the 21 flights on this trip where we had to meet a connecting flight which we missed. That was the last Finnair flight to St. Petersburg that day. However they were very good and arranged to fly us on a Pulkovo (an offshoot from the privatization of Aeroflot) flight 6½ hours later. It was only a ¾ hour flight on the Tupolev TU-154M. We eventually arrived in St. Petersburg at 10pm.