A great gray day

The Hayden where we are staying is excellent with one exception, our room only has one small window across from the door that looks out to a tall building. No sunlight comes in nor can we see the sky to know what the weather is doing. We were up fairly early and grabbed an umbrella just in case. When we went downstairs and out the door we were greeted with drizzling rain. We knew it would rain sooner or later and hoped we could get out of London before it did. Oh well, plans for today were mostly indoors so we could dodge the raindrops.

First on today’s agenda was to visit Westminster Abbey, something I have been looking forward to. When I got up I bought our tickets online for the first time-slot at 9:30. We arrived there at about 9 AM and were the first in line. Shortly after a line started forming but never got as long as I imagined it would. It started to rain while we were in line but we had our umbrella and were fine. When we walked in the Abbey I knew you could purchase tickets for what they called the Verger tour. This guided tour is by employees of the Abbey called vergers. They are very knowledgeable about the history of Westminster. At 11:30 we met up with our group of about 16 people and the verger. He was very informative and had a great dry sense of humor. I was glad we went on this tour because we learned a lot more about Westminster Abbey than we would have had we just walked around with our audio guides. You also get to go in areas that the rest of the public can’t. Not only is the Abbey a church and the place where all coronations have taken place and many royal weddings, the last being William and Kate, it’s also the final resting place for over 3300 people. Not just the kings and queens of the Monarchy, other notables are also laid to rest there. Most notably Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and more recently, Stephen Hawkins to name a few. There are so many tomb stones throughout the Abbey I wondered at first if it was disrespectful for so many people to be walking over them day in and day out. Apparently not. Despite the long morning I really enjoyed out visit here today.

it was 1:00 when we walked out and it had stopped raining. The skies were still gray but at least we could put the umbrella away. We decided on lunch at Gordon’s Wine Bar on Neil’s recommendation. Gordon’s is thought to be the oldest wine bar in London, established back in 1890. The ambiance in Gordon’s is just outstanding. Anyone over 5’ 7” needs to bend down as you walk in what looks like a long narrow cave. The are no lights just candles on the 20 or so tables. We had two glasses of wine, a port for Carl and a sauvignon blanc for me. We shared a cheese board and a meat pie made of pork and ham. Everything was perfect. Just before heading out the skies broke open again. We sat inside a bit longer until it stopped. From there we took the tube to Covent Garden and Piccadilly. The purpose of our visit to this area was to pick up some tea at Fortune & Mason for someone I promised to bring some back to and so I could see first hand Neal’s Yard, a colorful alley in Covent Garden that I’ve read so much about.

With both of those checked off our to do list we headed back towards Tower Hill where we had a river cruise reserved for 6:30. We got there just as they started letting people line up. We chatted in line with a woman from New Mexico who was on her own traveling through England and Scotland. Once on the boat they hand you a glass of Prosecco that we took up to the top of the boat to get good seats for the two hour cruise down the Thames. They came around quite often with various canapé’s also. The best part of the cruise is the second hour as it returns back past all the London sites lit up. It got a little chilly but we stayed on top and enjoyed the sites on our last night in London. We took the tube back to Notting Hill and stopped down in the pub where we are staying and hand another delicious meal of fish and chips and a burger. It was a long full day. Tomorrow we have an early morning train to get us close to Cornwall where we pick up a rental car in Penzance to have for the next week.

London impressed us much more than we expected. We had a list of sites to see, places to go and restaurants to eat at. We only put a dent in that list. Good reason to maybe come back some day. Todays step count…17,680 steps or 6.85 miles!