A day out in London

A mini-Tardis. Police boxes still exist,
this one opposite the US Embassy.

Having one of the world's best cities on our doorstep would be wasted if we didn't occasionally venture in. The trigger this time was evening cocktails (more about this later), but with the travel and expense of getting there it makes sense to make a full day of it. Not surprisingly, given it is winter here, it was a cool and damp day but not enough of either to stop us walking almost everywhere. Indeed we were probably on our feet for 10 hours plus, hence the sore limbs the next day.

London is such a good city to walk around as there are so many interesting but different sites next to each other, and the traffic isn't too bad now they have stopped the bulk of the private cars from driving there via their congestion charges. Though there are plenty of cafes where you can recharge yourself, there is a distinct lack of public toilets, and many of the cafes don't have them either, so it can get a bit uncomfortable at times!

We are lucky that we get to arrive at Paddington Station as this encourages us to walk to the West End of the city through some beautiful residential streets that are a mix of very large white Georgian-style buildings and little cobbled lanes containing two-storey mews houses. We did notice that some of these little houses were selling for over £3 million! Our trail then takes us through the enormous Hyde Park, a chance to escape the people, traffic and noise for a few minutes.

The Royal Arcade

Hyde Park leads to the Mayfair/Piccadilly area, full of very, VERY, expensive shops, from the car sales (windows full of Aston Martins, Bentleys, etc) to bespoke clothing. A highlight are the several old arcades full of interesting little shops, mainly selling hats and shoes and bags and high-end watches. Typical is the Burlington Arcade, described as (from Wikipedia): built "for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand, for the gratification of the public". It even has it's own security team, three gents in top hats and frockcoats.


For something completely different we ended up at the east side of the city, at Brick Lane in Whitechapel. There is a good reason why this is the cheapest property in Monopoly, though with the spread of the financial city ever east-ward there are many new buildings, trendy eateries and markets appearing. Not nearly as scruffy as when I used to work nearby 25 years ago. There are still many of the cheap curry restaurants for which the area is famous.

 

As 5pm arrived we scurried across Tower Bridge to Bermondsey, another "working class" area showing signs of gentrification, including the little gallery that was our destination. Olympus was putting on an event for Olympus camera owners to sample some new equipment (sadly lacking as it turned out, because there was a much larger photographic event on in town) and to practice on a barman creating cocktails for us (for free). Whilst not quite as good as we had hoped, after a couple of cocktails all was well.

Heading home was a chance for a few night shots around the Thames ...

 

Living in the middle of nowhere has its drawbacks when you're planning a night out in London - few evening trains go through to Theale (our closest station, and where we leave our car), and it's not impossible to spend an hour sitting at Reading station waiting for a connection.  As is usual, though not infallible, our sense of timing and good luck held, and we were able to pack up our gear, march several blocks to the closest tube station, race through a change of trains at another, hop off at Paddington, grab a late and light dinner (filled roll and pastry) and make it to our train with three minutes to spare - and we got a seat!