It was your typical London day – Gloomy, rainy all day but never a down pour just a light rain. Peter woke up at 9 ran down and got an “English breakfast” which is an egg not completely cooked through but not runny, toast, some sort of baked beans(but different) chips(fries) and bacon(ham) and sometimes sausage and a roasted tomato and mushrooms. Odd combo I know…I got up around 10 and got ready – we bolted for the minicab and started off towards London Bridge.
We got all the way down to the London bridge stop only to realize what we call the London Bridge is simply a bridge that has been burnt down and rebuilt numerous times. The big tall
double decker bridge we all think of is known as the “Tower Bridge” since the London Tower(castle/fort) is right there beside it. We walked back to the north side of the Thames across the London Bridge and took some pictures and video but it was
raining just enough to keep our electronics on a short time table.
We then walked, or tried to walk, to what we thought was the Bank of England (egg shaped building) actually called the Gherkin(not open to the public). We then found this little covered area like an outdoor mall (quite a few in London actually) where it is like any other cobble street with shops only there is an arching glass roof overhead.
It was freezing on Friday and we didn’t realize the restaurant we ate at (burrito) had an entire downstairs floor so we ate outside under cover but still quite cold. The Comic Relief troop(organization) was walking around in the rain in costume and happened upon us right before we ate – we ended up giving a few pounds over to a penguin and a giraffe to feed the starving children of Africa. We later saw a storm trooper, Cartman, Chef, tiger, wizard, a guy in flip flops(Gilligan?) and a few more. We then figured out where we were and rode a bus to the other side of the London Bridge. We walked aimlessly for a while down back alleys and random roads by the big train station, past Guy hospital and a few shops. We popped out next to the London Egg (city hall –which I realized after the fact that we could go into for free sadly) and
we passed by some sort of human bowling/tether ball combo thing for charity (pic/video) where they push a hanging heavy bag over an inflatable bouncy castle while people stand still wearing bowling pin costumes and try to knock over more people. From there we headed over to the tower bridge(which is the bridge everyone thinks of when they think of London). It
started raining a bit more and we were hungry so we stopped into a restaurant/café built into the bottom of the bridge just opposite the tower bridge tour exit.
We had a cheese and fruit plate, I got a coffee and peter got a coke/pepsi as usual. I made peter try the brie (who ended up eating most of it) and the weird other green marbled cheese. That is the restaurant with the small hallway to the bathroom because it must have been built after the bridge because even I had to duck to go into the hallway (video). From there we went on the Tower bridge tour backwards(free with our London Pass) – from the engine room to the
history and blue prints. We took loads of pictures from the top, there were a few videos on the construction and how the bridge lifts to allow the passage of boats. The North upper hallway has an appreciation of world famous bridges some of which I didn’t realize existed in such remote places. From there we left the Tower Bridge on the North end (technically the beginning) and headed toward the London Tower- which houses the crown jewels or at least the retired crown jewels. The castle itself is guarded by “Beefeaters” like the guy on the bottle of Beefeater Gin – no idea how they got their name. Peter got assaulted by the guard while walking into the vault because you can’t video or take pictures – woops. We walked around the castle there for a while – they had all sorts of cannons from famous ships and other castles that usedto be around London.
From here we headed out toward St. Paul's Cathedral to try and hike to the top and look around there – but they were having a service at 6 and stopped having visitors
at 530. After that we decided to just go walk around this section of town since we hadn’t gone west of Parliament (Thursday we went east towards the London Eye). We headed down some very small alleys and saw some really cool shops. I had to use the bathroom so we ducked into what was essentially a roadside cart restaurant – only in building form. I had always heard about carts selling fish and chips on the side of the bridges and on the sidewalks but all we ever saw was a few places on the Westminster Bridge cooking peanuts in some sort of sugar/honey/molasses and grilled sausages – we were always in a rush around them so we never tried them. When they cooled they looked like honey roasted peanuts. The hole in the wall we stopped at would fry anything. Peter said he saw them batter and deep fry a hamburger while I was in the bathroom – we had eaten just before or we probably would have eaten something odd here.
We then tried to see Westminster Abby, but they too were closed or closing. We missed Westminster everyday for some unfortunate reason. From here we ran over to Buckingham palace and the park associated with it (Hyde Park?). We were attacked by Squirrels and Pigeons(viddy). We started making noises because, well we’re us, and they came right up – one actually stood on my shoe for a second! We walked over towards the palace while the sun was setting in the park – for the first time Friday we could see sky and it was quite gorgeous. We took pictures until dusk and then
went back to try and find that restaurant that fried everything but were essentially lost so we just stopped at the first hole in the wall we could find and got food there – Peter had probably the (not probably per Peter but THE) best burger we’d ever seen/had – I got another steak and ale pie (best one yet) and then hung out for a while just to relax- chatted with the bartender and a guy sitting at the bar watching football/futball (not soccer – they had to correct me multiple times). From there we wandered around again for an hour or so until it got too cold to handle it walked back to Piccadilly circus and caught the tube back to the hotel. I was determined to make an itinerary for Saturday since we still had so much to see and only a day to do it in.
No comments:
Post a Comment