« Back to home

Foggy London Town Day 2 3/4

Posted on

Jolly old England!

Time for a bloggie postie!  A bloggie-do!  A postarama bloggy style!

Sarah waiting for dinner at The White Hart Brew Pub

Sarah Waiting for Dinner

Cheerio pip pip and wotnot ole chap!

Tower Bridge Illuminated

Tower Bridge Illuminated

Ok, enough of that shit.  Sarah and I are in London, England!

Our Airbnb location in London

This is the end of our second full day here, and I’m pleased to say we didn’t sleep in too much.  Today we got going around 930, down to Silvia’s Corner, a real foodie’s breakfast place near our Airbnb. Well, the foodiest place nearby.  This was a great place to stop for both of us.  Sarah got a juice and this eggs and chorizo and toast thing that was fantastic, and I got a greasy ass plate of buttered toast, bacon, sausage and eggs.  Delicious.

Sylvia's Corner - we highly recommend this place

After breakfast we took the light rail down to Greenwich and checked out the Cutty Sark, the observatory, and the Queen’s House.  They were working on the rigging on the ship, and you get to walk all over it.  They’ve setup fantastic animations and museum games down in the hold.  Over at the observatory you can stand on the prime meridian, and see some of the original clocks that enabled naval navigation.  The Queen’s House is now an art museum. It’s open to visitors for free.

The Cutty Sark as you approach it

The Cutty Sark

Some ship stuff up on the deck of the Cutty Sark. Lots of wood and cable.

Ship Parts

The rigging and mast of the Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark Rigging

On the deck of the Cutty Sark, from the bow looking backwards

Cutty Sark Deck

A bag representing some Cutty Sark cargo, also an ad for this fast ship

Representative Cargo

A warning sign is painted on the metal beams of the Cutty Sark, warning folks to watch their head. The story of my life.

Mind your Head

The cutty sark isn't built for tall folks

Low Beams

For lunch we stopped at the Greenwich market, which is full of kitschy shops and street food places.  Sarah browsed the shops while I looked around for which Indian food place was the best.  We had samosas and a Chicken Tikka wrap while sitting in the warm sunlight.  We grabbed coffees before hoping back on the light rail and heading in toward the Tower of London.

London Tower is easy to walk around at night, and beautiful.  These are the outer walls.

London Tower at Night

This catapult greets you as you enter London Tower.  This photo is down where a moat would have been, but it has been dry for ages.  We saw folks walking their dogs out here on the first night.

Catapult at London Tower

The London Tower Beefeaters give the tours here - their order is still around!

Beefeater Tour Begins

We spent about two hours hanging around at the Tower. This place is a castle that is almost entirely open to the public.  Beefeaters are living here still, giving tours, and our tour guide Spike was hilarious.  This guy knew his history and knew how to entertain. We had a great time, and followed the tour up with a self-guided exploration within the walls.  The Tower Bridge raised up at one point to let a boat through - you can find the Tower Bridge raising times scheduled out on their website, and you can find great views of the tower bridge at the tower of London.

Some of the crowd, and some of London Tower's inside.  The crow cages are down there on the left, and that's Tower Bridge in the background.

London Tower Crowd

Some residences still exist in London Tower, some lived-in by the Beefeaters.  These here are very historic, with past queens living there, awaiting beheading.

London Tower Residences

London Tower Walls and Downtown London

London Tower Walls and Downtown London

A view of London's Tower Bridge as seen from the walls of London Tower castle

Tower Bridge seen from London Tower

Now we’re sitting in a pub just back from a main drag, called Draft House Seething.  Great place.

Yesterday began with us walking up late.  No worries mate.  I went on what accidentally became a six mile run, but I got to see a good chunk of the city.  The Millennium Bridge, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, Tower Bridge.  Well, we had seen Tower Bridge the night before.  There was a place playing London Bridge is Falling Down under London Bridge.  It was on a loopie doopie as they call it here in gay old London town.

Sarah looking at her photos in Trafalgar Square

Sarah in Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square - although there's a ton more behind me.  You'll just have to go see it.

Trafalgar Square

The Horse Guards in front of the Household Cavalry Museum

Horse Guards

Anyway, after that we picked up a couple London Passes, which we have been using ever since.  They’re basically prepaid entry to more places that you can ever visit. But we knew we were going to visit a bunch of them.  On that first full day, Churchill’s War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, the National Portrait Gallery (which is free anyway), Big Ben is down there too, but he’s under construction.  You know why the ladies call him Big Ben right?

Big Ben is under construction...  There's a large scaffolding surrounding it in this photo.

Big Ben

The Chevalier D'Eon was a French soldier, spy, diplomat, and fencing demonstrator.  If this guy wants to live as a woman, you better let him.

Chevalier D’Eon

This is Queen Elizabeth II's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.  The caption explained that she didn't love many portraits of her, but she liked this artist for it, and she liked this portrait.  I agree - it says so much about her.

Queen Elizabeth’s Portrait

We went to dinner around there, and some sort of London Film Fest was happening.  So of course we had dinner with Kate Winslet and Sarah drew her like she draws me, her French girl.

Dinner at Waxy’s Little Sister, this pub with good food and an upstairs couch lounge.  We walked around and stopped by Sherlock’s house, which is a museum at 221b Baker Street.  That was a short stop away on the Tubey Wubey, as they call it here in Foggy Londonnerville.

Somewhat disappointing - there are several pubs down the street, so have some whisky before you get here.

221b Baker Street

I’m sticking to my doctor prescribed one-cask-ale-a-day prescription.  It’s tough but I think I’m the man to accomplish it.

Titty titty ta ta for now, as they say here in Queener-do-ville.


Comments:

UK 2017 Summary | blog.notmet.net - Oct 2, 2017

[…] London Post 1 […]