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London, Around the City Our Last Day...oh no!
May 25, 2016
We are loving our few days around and about London! We are staying near the Ritz Hotel at the Holiday Inn in the Mayfair district of London….very upscale and posh.
The neighborhood is bustling and full of life…lots of traffic, pedestrians, shops and places to snack and eat! We have found a grocery store around the corner and three coffee places within a block. We spend our time wandering the city of London. Dave and his excellent map reading skills really make this part of our visit easy. And, we walk miles and miles.
Our first stop today is just a few blocks away, The Faraday Museum. Dave has been wanting to go here as Michael Faraday was one of the people who got him interested in science. The museum is in a basement of the Royal Institution (RI), “Science Lives Here”, where we see Faraday’s Lab, the place where he discovered electromagnetic forces and the first electrical transformer to the tube. We try our hand at try at the chemical elements game. A big board of chemical elements where you need to quickly spot 10
elements discovered at the RI as they appear in a fast-and-furious elements song. Quite fun even though we can’t get even one element! ;-).
http://www.rigb.org/ On our way again, we head to the Churchill and Roosevelt sculpture at the intersection of Old and New Bond Street.These are bronze statues of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sitting 'talking' together on a bench in Mayfair. This statue is called 'Allies'. We had our pictures taken there a few days ago so we take pictures of Sharon ;-)
Where to next? Let’s head over to the former home of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books. Okay, this is good, we see where he lived in a large home but… it is covered in scaffolding and really cannot be seen. Guess they are doing some renovation work. Moving on… we continue toward Regents Park.
After crossing upscale Oxford Street with shops for any taste and budget we trudge on for a while, walking through a beautiful shopping arcade. We stop in a Cancer Society Thrift Shop but don’t see anything that’s for us. We pass lovely flower vendors on the streets and people bustling everywhere. Now we’re about
2/3 of the way to Regent’s Park and decide that we need sustenance so stop Coco Momo's a nice coffee place for some cappuccino and croissants. Good to sit down and rest.
We decide it is time to move on and across the street we see the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Dave reminds us that Sherlock Homes was a fictional character and never lived there…oh yeah, duh ;-) Moving on we continue toward Regents College, part of the University of London where Jean’s son Steve went to school for a summer. The campus is outstandingly beautiful with lakes, swans, ibis and turtles. Trees are in bloom. We go to the information desk as we’d like to buy Steve a little something from the college and are told that the bookstore has been moved inside the college and only registered students ae allowed inside. New security precautions. Hummm… bummer. The receptionist offers us a pen with the word Regents on it… not exactly what we had in mind. Then another receptionist suggests they call the bookstore manager and see if she will take responsibility for us and log us in… yea! The manager, a nice young lady, comes smiling down the
hall and takes charge of us. She lets us all enter. We go down a long hallway to the bookstore where we buy Steve a sweatshirt ;-) Nice.
Back out on the street we go through the park and decide it is definitely time for lunch. We pick a local place called ;-) Pizza Express for a coke and pizza. Turns out to be quite good and our server is from the Ivory Coast and has a brother in Sacramento, California that she is going to see in a few weeks. We chat about California. She is looking forward to the warm ;-)
As we make our way back we see lots of expensive homes and row houses in the Mayfair district. Many have been remodeled and are fresh and modern on the inside, while retaining the old flavor outside. We see all kinds of expensive fancy cars parked on the streets…McLaren, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Maserati; Cope and Dave are in heaven ;-).
What a City!!!!
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Madeleine88
Madeleine Duchamp
London, one of my favourite
I travel a lot, in all around the world. While London is close to my own country, this wonderful city is part of one my favourite destination especially for it history and architecture. I love it crazy sides with Kamden Market but also museums which make us discover the Old UK! Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. I like meeting travelers with the same expectations and goals than me! Enjoy your last trip ;)