Saturday 18 May 2019

London

We don't often go to London despite the fact that it's less than 2 hours away by train.  However, for our wedding anniversary trip we took the train to London and met up with our lovely friends, Keith & Valerie.

The four of us took the boat from Tower Pier to Greenwich.  Going by boat is one of the best ways to see London.  The weather was fantastic and the Tower of London looked majestic.

After a pub lunch, we climbed the hill up to the Royal Observatory.  It has a permanent exhibition that explains how longitude and latitude are organised and how Greenwich Meantime came into being .

The view over London is spectacular too.


In the courtyard of the Observatory is the Greenwich Meridian.  Here I'm standing where East meets West.  Left foot in the east - right foot in the west.  Plus Keith's foot!  No comment!

The other three went to look round the inside of the Cutty Sark whilst I stayed outside and took rather a lot of photos of the masts. You'll be relieved to know I'm only going to share one with you.

Then back on the boat to return to Tower Pier.   The buildings at the front are the Old Royal Naval College with the Queen's House in the middle - further back.

We passed by The Grapes (the narrow building with the garden terrace and wooden railings) where Roger had booked a table for dinner.  This pub features in Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend'.

And back to dry land by the Tower of London.

This was the inner courtyard garden of the hotel we were staying at: The Royal Foundation of St. Katharine.

Our second day was bittersweet as we said goodbye to Keith & Valerie.   Roger & I walked past Limehouse Basin.

And past The Grapes.

We were heading for the Museum of London Docklands which is in an old sugar warehouse alongside West India Docks.  It is dwarfed by the modern buildings of Canary Wharf.

It packs in an enormous amount of history.  It was really interesting and FREE!

West India Docks

A map of the area.  I had suggested to Roger that we walk from Limehouse to King's Cross but fortunately he ignored me and we took the underground instead.

We visited the London Canal Museum which was small but full of information before we started our walk along the Regent's Canal.  The museum combined information about the canals with the history of ice and ice cream.  Quite a combination!

As we started our walk we saw this second hand book shop on a barge.

How about these little cuties?

We walked past Gasholder Park.


We walked along through Camden - with a quick detour into the market.

Here's a pirate castle!

And after the hustle and bustle of Camden the canal glides past the London Zoo and Regent's Park.

A floating Chinese restaurant.




Getting nearer to Little Venice.

Little Venice itself.  I had wanted to see this for such a long time and was somewhat disappointed.  I thought it would be more like Gas Street Basin in Birmingham.

We ended our canal walk at Paddington Basin.  There was still more walking to be done - from Paddington Basin to a Malaysian restaurant and then on to Marylebone Station for the journey home.  Plus the walk from Solihull Station to our house.

We certainly packed a lot into 2 days.  And the next day my sore feet, painful calves and hips, thought so too!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


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