London on a Sunday

Today I discovered that Sunday is a great day to be out and about in London! (If one chooses wisely.)

Since I'm staying at Kelaine and Richard's, I merely had to get myself to Wimbledon Station (via bus) and then onto the correct District Line Tube train (which was empty except for me), transfer once (OMG) at Earl's Court, get off at the correct stop, South Kensington, walk through a long subway (which means pedestrian underpass here - also nearly empty at 10:00 a.m.), follow the signs, and emerge (amazingly, victoriously) at the Victoria & Albert Museum!

The V&A is quite the happy place with an eclectic collection of period clothing, furniture, design artifacts, paintings, stained glass, sculpture - and where even the cafeteria trays are delightfully decorative!

Could've stayed there all day, but today is my last full day in London, so where did I head next? Well, out to Olympic Park of course! I wanted to see what I could see since today is also the last day of the Para Olympics.

Perhaps not my very best idea of this trip! Laugh with me here!

With advice from one of the numerous guides in pink (appears to be the London 2012 Olympic official color) and a map, I managed to ride two Tube lines involving a transfer from Piccadilly Line to Central Line all the way out to East London. Upon alighting at the Stratford stop I realized where all the people in London were - here!!!

And not only that, but a person such as me couldn't even get near the park without a ticket which in today's case would have meant for the closing ceremonies!

So I walked and walked and walked with the crowds (driving is one thing, but are you supposed to walk on the right or the left?) through a shopping mall (of all things) into a department store that had created an indoors observation deck for the multitudes. And, well, that's the sum exciting total of my trip to Olympic Park.

Well, except for the Tube ride back that took over an hour and involved two more transfers and 27 stops - I counted them!

Home sweet home tomorrow!

Walking London

Today we pretty much WALKED to all the sights we'd seen from the tour bus yesterday. Which makes it a really good thing to be resting with feet up in our Celtic Hotel room right now.

This morning we took a little spin with Kelaine & Richard to see Wembley Stadium where Wimbledon is being played right now. It was just up the hill from their house, a cute, ritzy little village with a rather major sporting event!

Then we met Tam for coffee at a little spot in Wimbledon near the underground station. Turns out his flat is just a few stops south. What a fun time we had visiting and catching up! Afterwards he walked us to the station & assisted in finding our train to our hotel in Central London.

After depositing our bags at our hotel we took off walking to Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall to No.10 Downing Street, to Westminster Abbey, past Big Ben, over the Westminster Bridge, along the South Bank of the river Thames, under the London Eye, and to the Globe Theatre where we hoped to purchase tickets and watch some Shakespeare. Which was sold out! So we had pizza, a salad, and a glass of wine before walked over the Milenium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. What a magnificent sight! What an incredible city!


We called upon the tube to take us back to Russell Square and a chance to reflect and relax. So tired! So worth it!

A Victoria Day

We made it to London yesterday with ontime flights and the miracle of actually finding each other without the benefit of cell phones at enormous Heathrow airport! After depositing our luggage at Kelaine &Richard's in Wimbledon & then heading into central London, we walked across the Westminster Bridge, cruised on the Thames & took in a West End musical - The Wizard of Oz.

And that pretty much set the pace for today!

Victoria Station by noon, a bus tour, a long meander through Hyde Park, and being wowed by the Prince Albert Memorial! Queen Victoria loved him and grieved for him a lot to build that! Not to mention the gloriously ornate Royal Albert Hall right across the street! After lunch at a pretty much perfect little bistro called The Hyde Perk we headed for the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was definitely our theme for the day - Buckingham Palace even sported the Queen Victoria Memorial in it's front yard!

And at dinner Richard helped satisfy our curiosity by answering our British Monarchy questions. He also found this super nifty and helpful website on British Royals.

Having trouble uploading photos. Hope to get that solved soon!