Colchester, Essex and London

After leaving Edinburgh, we flew into London's Stansted airport to meet up with Laura's cousin Bill and his partner Richard who live in Colchester, Essex - a town just a bit northeast of London.

Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town, having been referenced as a Roman settlement in AD77. To this day a Roman wall surrounds the town. As recently as 2004 and just a block from Bill and Richard's house, a Roman chariot track was unearthed and is estimated to have held as many as 10,000 spectators - the largest Roman structure ever found in Britain. They're putting condos on top of it.


We wandered around town, did some shopping, visited the town castle, hit a museum and then found a pub. After shopping a bit more, we wandered back towards the house and found a pub. Back at the house, we enjoyed the backyard and nice weather that England is experiencing after a long, wet summer.

The next day, we took a train into London for a superb lunch at Maze - a restaurant by top chef Gordon Ramsay. It was absolutely fantastic. From there we stepped out into a bright, mild London day and worked down Regent Street, past Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, down to Westminster Abbey and to the Parliament building and Big Ben. We stopped at a pub.










We crossed the River Thames and strolled along the South Bank - stopping at the London Eye, a large revolving observation wheel. It was cool.
Continuing down the south bank along the Thames, we stopped at a pub. The weather was perfect so we continued on foot back across the river, past St. Pauls Cathedral (where Charles and Diana were married) and stopped for Thai food near the Gherkin building.

London is phenomenal and we would love to go back some day and stay for a longer time.