The two weeks before Christmas, Justin and I headed to the UK with his best friend to visit my college best friend as well as another good friend, both who have moved there in the past year. I was super excited to (a) see our friends and (b) visit a country that’s been on my list for as long as I can remember. We spent weeks planning out all of the things we wanted to see and do and after arriving bright and early on a Wednesday morning, we dropped off our bags at our hotel and jumped into sight seeing. First on the list? St. Paul’s Cathedral
This cathedral was built in the late 1600s but a cathedral has stood on this ground since the 600s. Many state events occur here including funerals and weddings. The cathedral we know now was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, a name we would hear many, many times through audio tours during our vacation (he was quite a popular architect in his day, among other things). We found the Tube to be very easy to navigate and arrived at St. Paul’s in a timely manner. The three of us paid our entrance fee and began our individual audio tour, exploring the cathedral floor. No photography was allowed inside the cathedral itself, so I can’t share with you the beauty. (You can see photos on their website, linked above)
After exploring the entire cathedral floor, the three of us decide to climb to the top! One of the things we debated about doing in London was riding the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel looking contraption on the river). My friend Jaclyn suggested that we could get just as good of a view of the entire city from the top of St. Paul’s, and since we’d already paid to get in, and the weather was nice, to the top we decided to go!
We first climbed 257 steps to the Whispering Gallery, inside the dome looking down on the cathedral floor. Here, apparently, if you whisper something, someone on the other side can hear you as if they were standing next to you. There was a service going on down below so we didn’t try it out, though, and headed back to the stairs to head to the next level.
Another 119 steps brought us to the Stone Gallery, and the outside. I’m a bit afraid of heights so I was happy to see the safe stone walls, with decent openings for cameras, when we arrived. I also loved the bright blue skies!
The view took our breaths away.
You can see the London Eye in the distance.
After taking in the gorgeous view, we headed back inside to head even farther up! This is when I started to get quite nervous myself (and needed to give myself a pep talk), but I made it 
Another 152 steps up to the Golden Gallery.
It seemed as though we could see to forever…
After a few more photos, back inside and down 528 steps to the cathedral floor. I was impressed with traffic flow, as those going up used separate stairs from those going down.
Once back inside we spent some time exploring the crypt. Some of the most famous individuals buried at St. Paul’s Cathedral are Lord Nelson, Lord Welling, and Sir Christopher Wren (the architect who designed it). Again, no photos since we were inside.
As we headed out, though, I snapped up a few of the outside. Unfortunately, the Occupy movement has set up camp outside, ruining a bit of the beauty of the site, but they were easy to walk around, thankfully.
Our first stop in London was a great one, filled with history, and beautiful sites –inside and out. We next headed to lunch and then off to the Tower of London!