London Calling...

As some of you may have seen in our other blog (there is a language warning associated with this! Monopoly board pub crawl ), we went to London in the last weekend in October for Matt’s 40^th birthday commiserations – I mean celebrations.

So, on Friday 24^th we set off to London. We get to London Paddington and negotiate our way out and to our hotel with very little drama. However. When we get to our hotel, we’re informed by the clerk behind the desk that the group which owns the hotel has 2 properties in the area, and although we booked at one, we’ve been “upgraded” to the other, at no charge. Well, we thought, that’s OK especially given that the other hotel is on the same street as the one we booked. This was on a street of lovely looking houses not too far from Paddington Station. Our “upgraded” room was in the basement, and was right next to the lift and down the corridor to the dining room. We could hear every tube service which passed underneath. We could hear conversations in other rooms. The door to the bathroom couldn’t open all the way as the bed was in the way. And it had the most horrible breakfasts we’ve ever had – it even put the nasty greasy excuse for a breakfast we had at our hotel in Dublin to shame. The coffee was nasty. The OJ was watered down. The cooked breakfast consisted of 1 egg (is that poached or fried? We couldn’t tell) and 1 rasher of bacon – Matt’s ‘full English’ had 1 egg, 1 rasher of bacon, and the smallest sausage you’ve ever seen – barely the length of an adult’s little finger. So much for stocking up on a filling breakfast before our pub crawl! We won’t be staying at the Athena Hotel ever, ever again.

Anyway, back to the Friday. Kathy had pre-booked entry tickets to the Tower of London, so after we checked in we headed off, recharging our Oyster cards as we went (and many thanks to Chris and Bron for leaving them behind for us – they were invaluable). The Tower was fantastic!

Matt at the Tower of London

Tower of London

Because we didn’t get there until 3.45pm we didn’t have time to see a lot of stuff before the Tower closed at 5.30pm. We went in to one part and had a good look around, and saw a recreation of how a medieval royal bedroom would have been set up (complete with cheesy open fire sounds) and walked along one of the walls,

Obligatory photo of the ravens at the Tower

before going in to the Royal Armoury. Here Matt was in his element – all that time spent playing role play games and reading about Agincourt paid off.

pikes and other nasty bits

It was pretty spectacular, but Kathy did start to get bored and a bit fidgety after the suits of armour display. One thing we did stand and go ‘oh my goodness’ at was a video on a loop of a guy doing cartwheels in a full suit of plate armour! We had just enough time to have a little wander around near the courtyard where most of the executions took place, and to buy some bears for a pair of boys in Kadina before they started kicking us out. The sun was setting, so we walked around the outside of the Tower complex and watched the sun reflecting off the White Tower,

White Tower at sunset

Close up of the White Tower at sunset

Tower Bridge,

and the buildings on the other side of the Thames

before walking back to the Tube

Traffic on Tower Bridge, on our long way round back to the tube station

to head off to Fulham Broadway for dinner.

The tube at nearly rush hour was an interesting experience! Glad we were on a less busy line and were closer to 6pm than 5.30pm. Some of those trains must get soooooo crowded. We get to Fulham Broadway no problems, and have the address of the restaurant (The Sugar Hut). So, where was it? Hmm, perhaps we should have bought a map which was of greater London, not just the freebie which has Central London and all the tourist spots. Undaunted, we head to a Waterstone’s at the tube station, find where we were heading to, and head off – with only 1 wrong turn. Which is better than some of the party could manage (Terry, you’re never going to live that down)! We’d had a phone call earlier in the afternoon from Tim, who was caught up on a delayed Eurostar train saying that he was going to be late, but it turns out that by the time everyone had finally arrived, we’d just sat down to order when he did turn up – well timed, Clodey. Not that we minded terribly, because the restaurant was also a cocktail bar and it served sparkling wine by the glass, so we were quite happy to settle down and have a quiet couple while we waited for everyone else. We had a good meal, and even managed to find our way home again afterwards.

Saturday, the momentous day, dawned, and we were blessed with the weather. Yes, it was windy and cool, but it wasn’t raining. As much of what transpired is in the other blog, I won’t repeat much of it here. We walked 5,000 miles, or so it felt, so that the effects of drinking at 25 pubs wasn’t too great (for us at least). Yes, there were 26 pubs on the list, for the 26 squares on a monopoly board (excluding utilities), but at Kings Cross Station the pub is closed. So there you go. We were really impressed at the way that such a diverse group of people all got along so well, and that everyone remained in fairly good spirits – tiredness and sore feet aside as it was a 12 hour effort. Matt drank halves of bitter, and Kathy drank halves of bitter at every other pub, alternating with OJ or soda water. The hardest parts of the day were the distances covered and the need to keep moving. Sometimes it was a shame to have to move on in some of the nicer places we visited, but we had to keep moving in order to get through the board. We did start off with several other groups, but they all fell by the wayside by about pub 6. I think it had to do with the effort of keeping moving and making transport connections. The pub aspect aside, we really did see some fantastic parts of London. As Matt kept saying, it was as though we were running amok in a postcard.

Some of the gems of the day were Matt and Weezul (Rich) getting the giggles (this won’t surprise some who know both of them), seeing St Paul’s all lit up at night, and some yummy food Kathy grabbed on the way – a cheese and bacon pastie at one place, and a fantastic (healthy) vegetarian kebab towards the end at Marlborough Street.

On Sunday we had a bit of a lie in (partly to do with the end of Daylight Saving) – it was impossible to have a sleep in with the noise in the hotel. A little reward for our efforts of the previous day, and we got up feeling remarkably chipper, sore feet and legs aside. As Sunday was the actual day of Matt’s birthday, it was a day of doing things he particularly wanted to do. One of those things was to have yum char – or dim sum as it’s called in the UK. We headed off in the vague direction of China Town, and due to Kathy’s surprisingly good guess work, found it (after walking around in the West End for a bit). We ended up choosing a place called the Golden Dragon, using the time honoured method of ‘what’s the ratio of Asians to Westerners?’, which has so far not let us down. The choice was a good one, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. It’s different from dim sum in Sydney, as we had to order off a menu instead of picking stuff off a trolley – which had the advantage of us not ordering too much!

Next we headed off to Westminster, walking through Carnaby and Oxford Streets and looking at the window displays. Who would have thunk it – we went all that way only to pass a sports shop which had as it’s main display of rugby jumpers a Welsh line up – not English! It was a bit drizzly, but that didn’t spoil the day for us. Anyway, it fined up after a while. Once in Westminster we stood and listened to Big Ben

Guess where...

chiming 1 o’clock (and later 2 o’clock), which was fantastic – it’s a really big bell with a really big sound which goes right through you, if you’re close enough. Great stuff. We also wandered around the outside of the Houses of Parliament as much as we were able too,

Matt standing outside the Sovereign's Entrance at Westminster

then headed in to a little park area at one end to look out over the Thames and played ‘what building is that’. Turns out we were looking at St. Martin’s Hospital and towards Lambeth Palace, which was lovely. Westminster Cathedral is not open to tourists on Sundays, but does invite them to join in the services – we thought about going to evensong, which is sung, but forgot. So instead of going in to the Cathedral building we walked around the outside, and looked at the outside of the building, and a Jewel Tower, which was part of the original palace at Westminster. We then headed off down Whitehall, past the Horse Guards,

Horse Guardsman on duty surrounded by tourists

and towards Downing Street. It’s an interesting part of town to wander down, as there are lots of statues and memorials to look at. We spied one which had a name on it we recognised, because we used to drive along a stretch of road in Canberra named after him – William Slim.

Viscount William Slim

Kathy really loved a memorial to the women who lost their lives serving in World War 2.

By this time the memory card on our little camera was full (we’d left the other one at the hotel as Matt was concerned about battery life ‘cause we’d forgotten to charge them before leaving Cardiff, and were relying on Matt's phone to take pictures). We thought we’d just buy a new card, but no. Who would have thought that a 4 year old digital camera had become obsolete? There was a solution of sorts, but it would have cost £35. Enough said.

Also by this time was an overwhelming need to sit for a bit, so we found a pub which wasn’t too crowded and did just that for a bit. Suitably fortified and refreshed, we headed back towards Trafalgar Square to see Nelson’s column – and for Kathy to point out to Matt how neatly the alignment of the column had Nelson looking over the Houses of Parliament.

Nelson's Column

Admiralty Arch, at Trafalgar Square

Because it was there, we quickly popped in to St. Martin’s in the Field for a look, but also to try and find out why there were military flags flying outside it. Best guess we could come up with was that it was a regimental church for some unit, because there was nothing about it we could find inside the church. We were quite saddened to see that the crypt had been turned in to a café (and we found out that there’s a similar one at St Paul’s, too), but I suppose the church has to make money somehow.

Our move in to that part of town wasn’t by accident, as Matt had missed taking a photo of one of the pubs we visited the night before. Seeing as we were outside it, we decided to go inside it, rest and have a couple of drinks and a something to eat – and to see if Matt could stop smiling to give his cheek muscles a rest because he’d had a grin on his face all day. We were disturbed by a guy at the bar, who we’d actually noticed the day before. He stood at the bar wearing an anorak, taking the most minute sips from his glass. Very odd.

When we were in China Town earlier in the day we’d seen a place which did hot pot, which Matt had had on one of his trips in S.E. Asia. It was a great decision – it was Japanese style and such a huge meal! For those who don’t know what it is, you have a big bowl of boiling stock on your table, and you cook your own meal in it – fish, meat, veg, whatever, and you season it how you like. Great fun, but so much food!! We’ve also lived in small cities or towns for too long. Despite it being a Sunday night, there were people everywhere! Going out for a meal, coming out of matinee performances at a theatre, whatever. To get some idea of the size of the crowd, Canberrans can think of Civic in the week before Christmas. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto!

Monday was our last day in London, and as we had a 3.15 train back to Cardiff needed to get out and about sharpish if we were going to see anything. We got the tube to Monument, to go to the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London. After a crowded tube trip, we found that the monument was closed for renovation. D’oh! Not entirely a wasted trip, as we bought our poppies for Remembrance Day. The chap we bought them from had already done 2 hours at London Bridge that morning. So it was back on the tube, and off to St. Paul’s.

Outside the front of St. Paul's Cathedral

Frieze at St. Paul's Cathedral

Oh. My. Goodness. What a building! We spent 2 hours there looking at all the memorials and tombs, including Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, Richard Seddon and George Grey, Flemming, and the US role of Honour, and of course Christopher Wren himself. We learnt that the first Bishop was appointed around 314 AD, and that there had been a church standing on that spot since the 11^th century. Wow. We climbed up to the Whispering Gallery, then up to the Stone Gallery to look at the view.

Matt wanted to continue up to the next level, but Kathy thought that discretion should be the better part of valour – and besides our tickets were valid for 12 months and we can come back when our legs will be less inclined to give us very rude messages. After a photo op outside the building

Matt on the steps of the Cathedral - believe it or not

(and watching the Bobby on duty handing out postcards to all the tourists warning of pick pockets and thieves in the area) we went to Notting Hill for lunch. Why? Because we could. Then it was back to Paddington to pick up our gear and wait for the train. Kathy did some essential Bear shopping for niece and nephews, and then it was on to the train and back to Cardiff for a fairly uneventful trip home. Because of the end of daylight saving and with the progression of the season, the sun is setting earlier and earlier. At about 4.45pm as we were near Bristol there was a spectacular sunset, of a big golden sun setting behind darkly purple clouds – just brilliant.

Back home in Cardiff, and the end of our London Monopoly adventure and a great weekend.