A day in London

I happen to be qualified to be a Freeman of the City of London in the traditional sense and I always love going to the place. I just get a sense of belonging when I am there even though it is vastly different from Australia or the USA. We therefore purchased a cheap day return train ticket to London and set off on a relatively fine day.

We got off at the rebuilt Blackfriars Station which spans the Thames River. Work on the station is not finished and there were workmen everywhere. No doubt they are hoping to get it ready in time for the Olympics.

No visit to London is complete without seeing the river. Any guesses on when the photo of the Queen etc was taken which you can see on the other side of the river. I would imagine the mid 70's.

According to my sister, Clare - 

The photo was taken following Princess Anne's wedding on November 14, 1973. Princess Anne and Mark Phillips are on the right.

Blackfriars station. I must admit I have never been in a London taxi and I should do it some time. In the background is 'the Shard' which is the tallest building in Europe. 

The train down to Burgess Hill passes near to it. Here it is in the rain a few days later as we traveled up to Yorkshire.

For me it's always a pleasure to walk around and look at the grand old buildings. We tend to forget that London was (and is) an extremely powerful city.

I read somewhere that the special 'games lane' may cause some resentment among the general public. My understanding is that they are designed to allow competitors and Olympic officials to be able to bypass traffic jams and get to their events on times. The problem is that 'Official Sponsors' will be able to use the lanes as well which is causing resentment.

And here is a Games Lane with a couple of horse mounted Police.

These lines of bicycles that you could rent were all over the place but most were unused.

We went to Dr Johnson's House and there will be a separate blog for that. It was interesting.

Precisely at noon we went into a pub and ordered a couple of ales and some food.

See how empty the pub is. Five minutes later, it was full.

Some how we both managed to order bangers and mash. The snags were pretty good, not like the dreadfully tasteless specimens that were placed before me in 1974. The standard of English pub food has improved immensely since then and everything I have these days is pretty good.

One of the best parts of visiting London is just wandering about. Shortly after leaving the pub we came across this market in Leather Lane.

We were going to visit Dickens House has well but it was closed for renovations.

A long building at Coram's Fields.

We missed our chance at going in there. Robin is now too old.

A UPS van drove past. It seemed to be narrower than the US variety and was powered by electricity.

Back in the late 80's, I took a couple of groups of college employees to London. We stayed at this hotel near Russell Square. The idea of the trips was to show Americans how easy it was to visit London. After dropping off our bags, I would make sure everybody had the train/bus pass called a Go As You Please pass and we would go down into the nearest underground station, Russell Square. We would change trains and come out of the underground at Piccadilly Circus. I would then lose them. Everything was fine, they found their way back to the hotel and they really enjoyed themselves.

The fancy hotel across the road is called the Hotel Russell. It looks very swank and sometime I might get the nerve and money to stay there.

Yes, there are still a few of them around.

Flowers in Russell Square.

Yes Robin, it is still there. The reviews seem to be pretty good.

We had a brief visit to the British Museum to see the Elgin Marbles. While we were in Germany I had seen a debate about whether the Marbles should be handed back to the Greeks. One of the debaters was Stephen Fry who argued that they should be handed back and his side won convincingly. However, I am not convinced. I will do a separate blog about this.

On the way back we walked past this small park near the Museum. It's Bloomsbury Square and it was quite fashionable at one time.

Back in 1976 we stayed here at a cheap hotel that overlooked the square. The hotel has long gone but I remembered the view.

Around the corner on Southampton Row is this plaque for one of my favourite conductors. I never saw him conduct but I have a few of his CDs. London was the home to so many famous people and there are blue plaques like this everywhere.

He was born here.

Another of the hotels our college group stayed at. About two hundred yards further along the road is where the bomb detonated in a bus on July 7, 2005.

While there are a lot of cheap hotels and famous expensive hotels in London, there are a lot of mid range hotels. These were in a lovely crescent at Cartwright Gardens.

We are not sure what the paint did to you. I touched the point of the bar but felt nothing out of the ordinary. However, my sister Clare has provided this link.

It looked like a nice quiet place to have a drink.

The refurbished St Pancras Hotel which is next to St Pancras Station where we caught the train back to Burgess Hill. The biggest problem with London is that invariably you walk much further than you initially planned. There is just so much to see and it is such a pleasure to just wander around and find the unexpected or something you have heard about but never thought you would see.