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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236
It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but Steven and I have never visited St Pauls Cathedral's interior, and we missed it again this trip. We took the tube to St Pauls and all walked to the front of St Paul's to admire it, but when we looked at all going inside, it was just too expensive, and we had so many other things on our London wishlist! Still, it will be there for us next time.
So, grabbing a quick coffee, we walked from St Pauls across the Millennium Bridge towards the Tate Modern Gallery, to visit Shakespeare's Globe. We are truly lucky travellers – it didn't really occur to me that we should have pre-booked our tour, but we got the last 7 spots on the next tour! I could have spent hours at the Globe – it was just wonderful. Even the rooms leading into the theatre were fascinating, and I think the kids understood a bit of it – they will understand even more when they study Shakespeare at school, and are able to remember what the theatre looked like etc. Next time, I'd love to take them for a performance, but I think Matt at 4
years old is just a little bit young this time.
We walked then, along the river, past the Golden Hinde (a full-sized reconstruction of the Tudor warship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577 – 1580). Again, next time we are in London, I'd love to arrange that we do a tour of it – they even do slumber parties for kids! A quick coffee stop (Matthew having his second breakfast for the morning) then past a pub used in Harry Potter films and Winchester Cathedral ruins.
Into the tube and out at Regent Street – after a pub lunch (great food again!) the boys went to Hamleys, the world's largest toy shop and we girls went to Liberty's, world's loveliest department store and fabric shop. (Of course, being expert shoppers, we also left time for us to get to Hamleys as well!) Rita got a real thrill to be in Carnaby Street, which was such an iconic place in the 1960s. By this stage, the kids (and some of the grownups!) were flagging so we went back to the apartment at Bloomsbury.
Steven and I didn't want to waste a minute in London, so we were quickly back
out and wandered down to the British Museum (so nice to have it on our street!), and then went for a wander through Soho. We walked down through Neal's Yard (looking at sites he had leased there and remembering nights spent at restaurants there), down to the Seven Dials (don't think we'd ever noticed the Dials before, but must have been there before!) and the Theatre District. I could tell you we did this walk for the sheer joy of being in London on a sunny spring afternoon – but the ulterior motive to our long walk was to collect stamps for a pub t-shirt. We had to visit pubs in a particular chain (and drink a pint) to receive stamps – when we had enough stamps, we got the shirts! All achieved by 5.30pm!
Back home, we loaded the kids into a taxi and went out to a gastro-pub to meet Andrea Monks and her fiancé Charlie. They were great fun – we had a wonderful night and great food and could have talked until the sun came up (I'll always remember Charlie's description of the fox in his parents' bedroom in Bath!) but the kids were getting tired, so
home by 10pm as the night sky was just turning dark.
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