A Walk Around London
Last Saturday Steve and I took an early-ish train to London. We got on at
Arundel station that is just a couple of miles from our home in Littlehampton, West Sussex.
We had pre-booked the tickets so they were not too expensive
just £10 each retuning the next day. The journey to London
Victoria is about 1 hour 35 minutes and is
pretty for the most part, until it gets close to London’s hub.
A lot of people take the tube to wherever they want to get
to in town and that is also cheap enough but you see nothing at all. Taxis are
expensive, but at least you see some of the sights as you go. When we are doing
our tourist thing instead of driving a truck through our Capital City,
we wear casual clothes and our most comfortable trainers with nice soft socks
and walk everywhere. This is the very best way to see this fabulous city. My
husband’s most often engaged complaint to me is in the form of a question: “Do
you have to walk so fast?” So last weekend I tried to hold my normal pace back
so that we would both enjoy our day equally. We strode off from Victoria
Station toward Buckingham
Palace and that is less
than a mile. Our first stop was a strike off the bucket list; I cannot believe
that I have never found the time to fit this into my busy life before. We went
in to The Royal Mews, where all the carriages that you see on state occasions
are kept and maintained to the highest standards. The tour information is
utterly fascinating even if you are not a horsey person and the carriages
themselves are jaw dropping in their splendour and all the stories about them
fascinating. Again the entry is not too pricey and worth every single penny.
From there, it is just a couple of hundred strides on,
toward the formal façade of Buckingham
Palace. We were lucky
enough to join what is always a huge body of tourists just waiting to catch the
famous Changing of the Guard. This is a daily freebee for visitors and is so
impressive no matter how many times you have seen it all before, Guards in
scarlet jackets and Busby’s marching behind a marching band brass instruments
sparkling in the sunshine. That day there were loads more groups, some mounted
and some on foot like the British Legion that we saw that day, along with a
very large group from Belgium.
Splendid, eyeball popping, colourful and free.
We walked on past Horse Guard’s Parade where there was also
a parade and toward Trafalgar
Square, fountains, lions Admiral Lord Nelson
perched atop the mighty column and lots of pigeons. Having crossed the square and
walked on way beyond the National Gallery, into Leicester Square and slipped
into Soho that is teeming with café’s, restaurants, bars, clubs and atmosphere.
We searched at home for an eatery that we had never been to before,
that was not part of a national chain and had agreed to book lunch at Bob-Bob
Richard. The décor is all in, to my eye anyway, super soft contrasting but
toning shades of teal and taupe for the walls and benches and only broken by
the staff uniform of pink waistcoats and ties. The restaurant had been a bank
in the past and still had a formal shape with an abundance of brass framing. Do
take a look at their website to see how smart and yet still pretty it is. The
seating is entirely to booths and the smile cannot be kept from your face, when
you see that every booth has a little brass button that reads ‘Press For
Champagne!’ We didn’t. But a group close to us did and just a hint on envy
escaped in a green flash from my eyes on seeing them served a pretty bottle of Laurent
Perrier Rose, until I remembered how much that would cost and that (The cost) would
give me a nasty case of indigestion. Steve is a non drinker and I just had a
tumbler cocktail with a fancy name. The food is quite original and is a
Russian-British very tasteful mix. We had two courses each that were
beautifully presented and a joy to the taste buds. Not cheap, but not
horrendous either.
Yesterday I reviewed our evening at the London Palladium and
the Courthouse Hotel that we left on Sunday morning and walked to The Wallace Collection
that was just 10-15 minutes from our hotel. Passing the London Palladium again,
where there was a homeless man sleeping on the marble steps of the entrance where
he was lying on and covered with cardboard. Thank your stars that you are not
he.
This was another long promised visit that we were so pleased
to have finally fitted in. I had signed up for a newsletter and so the need to
visit grew and grew until it was squeezed in to one of our too rare trips to
town. The Wallace Collection is a treasure house in the fullest sense and I
urge any and everybody to find time to visit. What you see in there will amaze you;
it may even knock your hot socks right off your tired feet. Treasures I tell
you, treasures galore, paintings by Gainsborough and Reynolds, blah, blah,
blah. There is furniture that belonged to Marie Antoinette. Clocks and clocks
and more clocks, all dripping gold leaf, everything dripping gold leaf. Cabinets
full of pretty little crystal and diamond boxes and miniature paintings. Every
room would be a stunning showpiece even empty, all had silk and satin walls
with delicate brass trim everywhere. And the armoury… OMG unbelievable and
there is a spot where you can try out some chain mail to see how heavy it is,
and put an armoured tunic over the top to see if you can still stand. AND it’s
free! Entry is free.
We took iced tea and a slice of cake in the impressive Wallace
Courtyard Café sitting with our shoes and socks off and bare feet cooling on
the marble floor (How very common, I hear you think loudly, but sooo good!) That
was our last treat before the final walk back to the Victoria Station. Our journey
home took four hours because cancellations due to the on going rail dispute.
Bit of a disappointment that, but nothing could spoil our marvellous weekend
jaunt or take away our happy memories.
London
is best when you walk it and cheap if you stay out of smart restaurants and
don’t buy tickets for the Palladium, unless you could not resist the star name
that night, as was my downfall.