Tower Bridge - In its full glory

Tower Bridge is one of the most prominent landmarks of London. No visit to London is complete without visiting Tower Bridge.

It is possible to make this visit even more exciting with a little bit of pre-planning. If you plan your visit during the time the bridge opens for ships to pass-through, you can witness and appreciate the engineering marvel of Tower Bridge.

Visit this page to find out the Bridge Lift times and plan your visit accordingly.
http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/lift-times/

© Paras Doshi, 2018.

London - Princess Diana Memorial Playground

This is a hidden gem of London, especially if you are traveling with kids.

Just behind Kensington Palace which is on the map of most tourists, is this little park which kids and adults will enjoy.

The park has a big ship made of wood that kids can spend fun time with.

It is surrounded by small little gems of activities which will keep everyone entertained.

A little further from this garden are the round pond, kensington gardens and the Princess Diana memorial fountain.

In all, you can easily spend 1 hour in the garden itself and more than 3 hours in the entire area.

Highly recommended if traveling to London with children.

Here is the map of the garden -





© Paras Doshi, 2018. 

Hard Rock Cafe London - Rock n' Roll memories

If you are a music fanatic and especially Rock n' Roll fan, a visit to Hard Rock Cafe located at Old Park Lane in London is a must.

It has one of the largest, most valued collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia in the world. The gift shop has the entrance to "The Vault" — a room which displays the special memorabilia of the famous artists including John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Sting, Madonna, Joe Satriani, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and so on.

In fact, this is the first Hard Rock Cafe opened in 1971 and has since grown the world over to 191 locations around the world.

Here is the location of the cafe.




© Paras Doshi, 2018.

Travel Tip: Win win with Kids

When you travel with kids, there are situations when kids demand something or the other, chocolates, ice cream, toys and so on.

Since they are seeing something new, or in some new place, or some one else doing something, they wish to do the same. But, this may not be good for kids and hence you want to avoid it. How to do that?

On our recent trip to Mahabaleshwar, we were 10 elders and 10 kids. We were having lunch at Mapro Garden. It was an open space and after having lunch, the kids were just playing about while the elders were waiting for their pizzas. Some kid saw people eating ice cream and got an idea of having an ice cream. The idea spread virally in the group and most of the kids (about 8-10 yrs olds) started demanding ice cream. Due to the weather, most parents wanted to avoid ice cream.

I asked the leader of the group of the kids that you have two options. Either to goto amusement park (which was planned for later that day) or have ice cream. Get the count of how many people want to goto amusement park and how many want an ice cream. Some of the parents chipped in with votes for ice cream and as expected all the kids voted for amusement park. The issue was resolved. The kids promptly forgot ice cream.

The main thing about this idea was not the example of showing carrots, but the fact that the kids got a challenge which they won. They managed to get more people to vote for Amusement park. Hence they were happy with the outcome.

Not only give them options, but also a task to get their favourite option win.