Big Ben London Attraction

During our visit to London, I was very anxious to see the Big Ben, one of the popular icons of London as part of London sightseeing.  On a Sunday mid morning we had set out to Piccadilly Circus, located in the heart of the city, where we had planned to meet two of our friends with their families, and go for sightseeing. After walking around some time in that area and clicking photos of the place in various angles we had our lunch in an Italian restaurant in Piccadilly Circle.

Most of us preferred pizza topped with healthy toppings, and others ordered for pasta. We enjoyed the food and felt that the price was just reasonable.

We had planned to go on a bus tour to see the places, and walked towards Trafalgar Square, a historical place, where several events are organized. Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square is very important spot to see. We spent some time there enjoying the beauty and hearing the stories of the places from our friends who were settled there, and clicking photos from various angles. It was my second visit to Trafalgar Square. I had been there earlier during the New Years day celebration week and was able to visit the nearest attraction National Art Gallery.

Since we had small kids with us we changed our idea of bus touring, and opted to walk down to see the places. Admiring many historic buildings and the moving vehicles we walked along with the tourist crowd, and stopped wherever we felt. When the kids saw some colorful elephant statues meant for entertainment on the way they too wanted to spend some time there. We saw a girl displayed her artistic skill on the road through her beautiful painting.

After relishing a chocolate ice cream on the way we continued our walk leisurely watching the London tourist bus and other vehicles passing on the road, along with the other tourists. We reached Downing Street, and saw the building No.10, Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister in Whitehall, the area on the edge of the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

We passed through some important sites such as Horse Guards, Women of World War II Memorial and Banqueting House. The Cenotaph has been a site of the Memorial service for the past several years. We stopped on each of these places for few minutes.

Finally, we reached Big Ben, located near the Houses of Parliament. The whole building is called as Palace of Westminster. Big Ben is a huge clock tower and has 11 floors, and also the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world. The bell which is called "Big Ben" weighs 13 tons, and the tower stands as high as 98m, overlooking Westminster.Only after reaching there I realized that we can't actually go up the tower and see the world famous clock.

We walked toward the banks of Thames and stared at the Big Ben and all other magnificent buildings for some time. We wanted to see some more tourist spots nearby, but as we were already too tired, decided to return home.