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The Tower of London, plus much more

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The Tower of London, plus much more
London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom


After yesterday’s walking session, the obvious way to start today was with a run! Well, let me clarify. Rachael runs, I shuffle! Kennington Park for a few laps, squirrels, dogs, and back home for brekky.

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First stop, the Tower of London. 20 mins in the queue to get in, then fluked it straight into the Crown Jewels exhibition. Rachael wanted a quib about the “crown jewels”, but this is a strictly PG rated blog, so let’s move on, shall we? Pretty interesting stuff, plenty of cash on display (or are they just fancy replica’s? We’ll never know), a testimony to the Royal’s excesses. We get out of the Jewel Room and the queue has grown to a 50min wait, so a big win there.

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Bloody Tower was next. “Torture at the Tower” is the title of this charming room, full of very nasty ways to make you talk. Quaint! The whole Tower of London was terrific, well worth the time spent there. Headed of to St. Paul’s which is LARGE. Very impressive, the Catholics fight back! Rachael lights another candle…. Lunch. Then a church of a different kind. Read Di Vinci code? Seen the film? Then you’ll know this place. Temple Church, the church of the knights Templar.

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Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple, or simply Templars, were among the most wealthy and powerful of the Western Christian military orders. The organization existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages. Their church is a most fascinating, mysterious and atmospheric place. And the acoustic’s….sneeze, and the sound bounces everywhere.

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Tucked away down a couple of lanes, through a guarded walk way, and surrounded by a cluster of buildings, this feels secretive. The burial ground for fallen Knights, a blast of ancient history, and the back story worth squillions.

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Regroup……march on. Back up The Strand to Trafalgar Square….starting to get my barrings now, then down Whitehall to Big Ben. Which is BIG, and impressive.

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Over to Southbank, checked out the London Eye, maybe another day, and on to a groovy little food market. Coffee….ah, coffee. Let me digress a little and discuss.

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Why in a city of 8 million are people prepared to put up with Starbucks as their standard? Londoners idea of upmarket is other chains such as Nero, or Costa. Nowhere are there cafes, or boutique coffee houses. Good coffee barely exists! Maybe there are too many Londoners, and they don’t have time to wait for fair dinkum coffee. I mean, there are literary 100’s os Starbucks in central London. Rant over…. Back home. Long day. Stuffed. Quick pasta/pizza feed, and once more in bed before the sun does down. Oxford tomorrow.

a LONG day walking in London

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London, United Kingdom


Ways to get over jet lag….
1/ spend the day resting with a beer or two,
2/ slowly work your way into the holiday, or
3/ smash out the kilometres walking all over London

Guess which one we chose?

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We have walked forever today, checking out heaps of sights.
Started by wandering aimlessly trying to find somewhere to buy a day pass for the tube. The local line was shut for the weekend. Finally bought tickets in Vauxhall, and made our way via double decker bus into the city.
First stop was Westminster Abbey, which was pretty spectacular, as was Parliament House.
Didn’t go into Westminster as the queue was forever, but saw William marry Kate on the TV, so got some ideas as to the interior!

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To appease Brendan we dropped in on Westminster Cathedral instead, which I must say is a little drab by comparison.

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Easy to see who’s running the show in England!
Made our way to Victoria Station, pass a multitude of Starbucks, and on to Buckingham Palace.
As we got closer the crowds got bigger and bigger…..couldn’t work out what all the fuss was about.

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As luck would have it, the Queen was in town so they had the full changing of the guards ceremony which we fluked seeing.

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Plonked ourselves front and centre, and didn’t see a thing ‘cos we were too busy videoing it!

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Kidding…..pretty impressive show, and probably the only free one we’ll get!

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Thru St. James’s Park to Downing Street, which had some of the most impressively armed coppers, but not much of a view of no. 10.
More walking to Trafalgar Square, which had some concert on, so didn’t see much except crowds, so on for our cultural moment at the National Gallery.
The National Gallery’s main attraction is Van Gogh’s famous sunflowers……which was on loan to Amsterdam.
Oh, well……Some pretty groovy Picasso’s and Monet’s made up for it….sort of.
Up Regent Street, a quick bite at a quaint little cafe called “pret-a-manger”, one of only about a thousand in town, then thru Soho and on to Oxford Street.

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Crowds!
My God, how many people can be shopping in one area?
Answer……heaps!
And, unlike on-line happy Australia, they are buying.
Anyway, we battled our way thru they crowds and ended up at Hyde park, which I thought was famous for its speakers corner.
Speakers anywhere….hello speakers…..
None! Bloody useless name for this corner!!!
Nice park, though.
Coffee at The Serpentine, then via tube to London Bridge.
‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down….’, well, it’s replacement is a bloody disappointment.
Swan Street bridge is more exciting.
Just a bog standard concrete nothing.
Still the Thames is interesting, very tidal. Flowing very quickly.

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We see Tower Bridge in the distance, pretty cool, so head off that way, and discover the Tower of London.
Probably the first to notice it…..not!
As it’s now 5.50, and the gates close at 6, we decide to buy tickets for tomorrow. Might be rushing it a bit to get thru all the beheadings in 10 minutes?!

Bus home.

Picking dinner was tricky, one place was a nice Thai style pub, the other welcomed you with a big sign at the bar letting everyone know that “David Naught is BARRED!”
Guess where we went.

Great day, covered most of the colours on the monopoly board.
Much murder and mayhem tomorrow!!

Arrive in London

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Arrive in London
London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom


Cathay CX 257 HK – London (Heathrow) 10.05 – 16.00 Take ‘blue’ Piccadilly line to Leicester Square, then ‘black’ Northern line to Kennington Station. 1 minute walk to B&B Above instructions worked to a tee! The flight from Honkers was long and uneventful. LONG….and uneventful. Rachael managed to sleep, naturally! When we left HK, I reset my watch to London time, settled in, and had a glass of red…..at 2.15 am. Then another with brekky/lunch/dinner (whatever it was called) at 5.00am……repeat till 4pm when we landed. We ran into Guy and family again at Heathrow. Their flight had gone via Singapore and arrived at the same time as ours. Plenty of time for a chat in the queue! Customs was slow, then on to the tube, and our home for the next 5 nights. Kennington B&B doesn’t have a sign out the front, but found it pretty easily. Knocked a few times till someone came and showed us our room, which was lovely. Nice place, we’ll do just fine here. Very tired, so a quick pint and bangers and mash at the local, then bed.


Leave for London via Hong Kong

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Leave for London via Hong Kong
Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, Australia


Cathay CX 178 Melbourne – Hong Kong 23.45 – 7.15 (21/6) It pays to look at the fine print on airline ticket info from the travel agent. Just because seats are allocated on print, doesn’t mean it’s so! Checked in last night, got our seats, and discovered we had the worse row on the plane. I was a punching bag for all things moving up and down the aisle, as they clipped me again and again. Beware all, if the seating map has your seats in red, avoid……or better still check in online the day before. Besides that, and Rachael falling asleep as we taxied out, a relatively smooth, if somewhat sleepless night to Honkers. Also, I ran into an old mate, Guy Nelson, at the airport. We haven’t seen each other for about 20 years, but he hasn’t changed and we caught up over a beer at the bar.