The AWT tour starts in York but I planned this stop in London to see the poppy installation at the Tower. The poppies were originally displayed in 2014 for the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. This installation was smaller with only 30,000 poppies but still quite impressive.

We have been to the Tower several times so we breezed through some of our favorite spots and walked the walls to see the poppies.

The ravens were also out and mixing with the tourist. So we got some up close and personal time with them as well.

Of course we shopped. Who would we be if we didn’t. Found some lovely blue topaz that will go great with my dress for the gala dinner this trip so I could not pass them up. And of course I bought the usual tourist treasures of bags, magnets and ornaments.

After the Tower we headed across the bridge to the Southwark Borough Market. We had gone once before on a tour with Siobhan and it had been a fun stop across the river. This time its Instagram fame made it a bust. You could barely walk through parts of it. The line for the chocolate strawberries and the paella were crazy. I can’t imagine they were good enough for both the line then trying to eat them as you were jostled by the crowd. We did get a cheese pretzel and some focaccia to tied us over and Val had a lavender lemonade and I had a Prosecco and gin lemonade. Both delicious so not a total loss.

It is also a nice walk between the market and the Tower. Would have been better if it had not been raining but you can walk along the Thames and have great views of the Tower Bridge.

We got back to the hotel bought train tickets to York and ordered a cab only to find out the cabs were running really late. We switched to uber and probably ended up waiting longer. What should have been a 25 minute drive for 3.5 miles ended up being an hour and we missed our train by 3 minutes. Thankfully there was another in a little over an hour so we didn’t have to wait long.

Other than finding seats the train went okay. We still only have one bag a piece so it was doable. We had to go to the end to find seats without reservations got on got our bags in with a little help and got settled to only realize we were in first class without first class tickets. We had to jump off and walk back to the first cabin get back in and find seats. All in the last 3 minutes before the train took off. It was a mad dash. There was no where for our suitcases so they just rolled around between the cars while we crammed in the last two seats. Regardless we made it to York and our hotel was basically across the street from the train station. Thankfully I discovered that before we waited too long in the cab line.

The hotel is old and stately. We split a fish and chips in the hotel bar before calling it a night.