Today was our last day
in London. Sad face :-(
Today we had to say
goodbye to Shanny. Huge sad face :-( :’(
Shaz, Mich and I walked
along the Thames to London Bridge Station and had breakfast under the Shard
while we waited for Ken to join us. Sliders for breakfast is OK,
yes? Actually it was 12, so technically it was lunch, and Pimm’s
O’Clock! I got my first Pimm’s and it was really delicious. Into
Dan Murphy’s again when I get home :-)
Today we were very privileged to not only have
Shanny all to ourselves, but also to have Shanny as our very own private tour
guide for Hampton Court, where she would be sharing her love of all things Tudors
with us.
London’s damn Tube strike was still on. So for our trip to Cambridge we caught a double-decker bus to Waterloo. As luck would have it, the northern line was still operational so we could tube it quickly to King’s Cross Station.
I grabbed our tickets and within minutes we were on the Cambridge Express, and almost as quickly, getting off the train at Cambridge less than an hour later. Too easy!
We walked downhill into town and after a quick wander around, grabbed a pretty decent burger at Ta Bouche for lunch. Now, I wouldn’t normally share any toilet experiences, but the loos downstairs at Ta Bouche were certainly a little novel, at least in my experiences to date. You see, the urinals all had screens above them, and little sensors in the urinal to allow you to control a game with, well…
Read about it here on Wikipedia
Today I decided to do a little exploration around London. Shaz and Ken were back at work, and Michelle wanted to have a quiet day. I had a rough idea where I wanted to go, including visiting a few of the London parks so off I headed.
Today was a tube strike so I decided to bus it to Waterloo. Now buses aren’t the quickest way around London at the best of times, and during peak hour when there are no tubes running they pretty much were hardly moving. So I got off at London Bridge and decided to walk it.
Since I’d walked the south side of the river before, I crossed over and walked along the north bank. It was an enjoyable if uneventful stroll: passing morning joggers, like-minded tourists and families, and suited workers grabbing their morning coffees.
Today we spent the entire day exploring the Tower of London. All Day. From about 10 in the morning, all the way through till 5PM. I think I saw pretty much everything.
Let’s see….
I’d bought the tickets online the night before to avoid queuing, and so I had to pick them up from Tower Hill. This meant that I ended up walking around the entire periphery of the Tower of London site. But I didn't have to queue. So entire wall of Tower of London from outside. Tick.
Today we had to get from one side of the country to the other. Now back home that would be a 4 day journey. Here it was only about 3 and a bit hours, but it still meant a light breakfast and a good bit of driving.
Next stop was somewhere starting with ‘B’.
Let’s see, Bourton?
Banbury?
How about Broadway? Yes. Broadway was a very large town, however the inner city was a beautiful village in the same style as the other Cotswolds towns we had so far visited.
Today we were off in our Zippy car for a taste of England outside of London.
Opening the boot to load our luggage, we found the previous renter had forgotten theirs. A bag full of ciggies. Blugh. Why couldn't it have been chocolates?
Back to back double-decker buses blocked our view from Waterloo Bridge; peak hour London was very slow going til we eventually got out into the suburbs.
On the motorway we made good time as we passed green hills and paddocks of sheep and drove on the outskirts of Oxford.
Michelle and I were up early to try and get some internet time in. The internet at Shaz and Ken’s is pretty much broken, so we thought we’d head down to Starbucks. Luckily they weren't open and we went to Caffe Paridiso, on Shad Thames for breakfast instead. Shaz and Ken joined us a bit later, and after we finished coffees and breakfast we caught the tube to Hampstead.
This morning we walked downriver and mud larked again with the low tide. Though there was much less to find at this point of the river, we still managed to pick up a couple of broken smoking pipes and pieces of old crockery.
The plane trip wasn’t actually as hard as I thought it would be. Sure I knew it would be long, but I managed to get in a good seven hours sleep between Hong Kong and London; and that was without drinking any alcohol at all on the second leg.
The early morning lights of London were laid out beneath us as the plane flew on and circled around to Heathrow. I love flying over cities at night, and really love arriving 30 minutes ahead of schedule!
A very quick passage through customs and baggage collection and we were met by Shazzy and Ken with many cuddles and smiles; a lovely warm welcome after our long flight.
Ken had arranged a private taxi to take us all back to their apartment in London. Leaving the airport and out onto the motorway I still didn't really feel like I was in another country, at least not until we were passing these beautiful multistorey apartment buildings with their high pitched roofs and tall chimneys.
Our taxi driver took us on a little impromptu tour of London: Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park with Big Ben in the distance. Along Whitehall and past Trafalgar Square, Cleopatra’s Needle across London Bridge and to the apartment. Yeah, we were in London. :-)
A couple of hours to change and freshen up, and then we were off on Ken’s lovingly and painstakingly prepared itinerary.
