Our first tour was the Hop On Hop Off bus tour. We decided to ride it all the way through from beginning to end to be acquainted with the city and to learn more about it. We took a seat on the roof, put on our blue head phones and when the bus moved we found it was freezing.
So we zipped up our coats and listened to the history around us and the reminders that if we got off to take our headphones with us. We quickly learned, as it began to rain, and when we passed Trafalgar Square for the second time that the bus looped around often, was repetitive and long. Without much sleep and with the cold air we eventually moved to sit inside the bus on the main level.
We had great views of the city sitting up top but it was colder than we had expected and at one point my cousin fell asleep. We learned why it’s called a hop on hop off tour, because you probably should hop off and explore and then get back on, just riding it the entire way around is exhausting.
Our trip included this Hop On Hop Off tour. It was a 24 hour pass with Golden Tours. (which most of our tours were with them) There are 44 stops and 7 different languages to listen to on the tour. It included a free walking tour voucher that we could use later. What I enjoyed from this was that if we hadn’t been so exhausted from not sleeping on our flight we would have had free transport around the city and a description of places we could hop off and enjoy. We could have ridden for a bit, heard an explanation of something interesting and gone to explore then find the stop again and get on a different bus. I don’t know how long the wait is between buses but the first bus leaves at 8am and the last bus leaves at 5pm from the main departure point which is Buckingham Palace Road, Colonnades Coach Station, No. 8. It was a great way to get acquainted with the city and learn about different buildings that we may have never seen or just walked past without a clue of their rich history. If you want to book this tour you can here.
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