Leah & Julian in The World

Piccadilly Circus

Well, after a jam-packed week, we are leaving London.  Next up, we pick up our “Wicked” campervan and head of to explore England, Ireland and Scotland.  The campervan doesn’t come with bed linen, so our first priority will be to get a warm doona!

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed London, and I can definitely see the appeal of living here.  However, we’ve been quite blessed with the weather – blue skies everyday except early yesterday afternoon (storm).  I imagine that if I stayed here for any length of time I’d miss the Queensland sunshine!

So, this is a quick list of what we did while in London (in no particular order):- Picadilly Circus, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Natural History Museum, British Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery, British Library, West End – saw We Will Rock You at the Dominion, Oxford Street, Tower of London and  Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral, curry at Brick Lane, Portobello Rd Markets, Borough Markets, lunch at Benares, Buckingham Palace (although we missed the changing of the guards), Trafalgar Square.  Photos are here.

It feels like all we’ve done is walk, so the campervan will be a welcome chance to sit down.

Posting may be a bit sporadic for the next few weeks, it will just depend on where we can get wifi.

Before I go, I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our little tour group, “found” at Paddington Station.

Found at Paddington Station

Benares, London

Today we had lunch at  the Michelin starred restaurant, Benares.  We had the prix fixe menu and it was delicious.  One of the great things about fancy restaurants is that they give amuse bouche between courses – you know I love free food.

It was a great day and the food was out of this world.  Certainly not something we’re used to.  And we’ll just ignore how much it cost…

I’ve posted more photos here.  Please forgive the photography, it was quite dim in the restaurant and I’m still learning!

An amazing clear morning meant we found ourselves touring the Tower of London under blue skies.  It also meant it was quite cold.  We continued our day walking over the Tower Bridge, then along the Thames via Tate Modern, back across the Millenium Bridge and finished  up at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Leah, an egg and Tower Bridge

One of the more unusual office buildings in London is The Gherkin, on St Mary Axe.  It also goes by the name Towering Innuendo.

The Tower of London from Tower Bridge. The Gherkin building in the background.

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Today we discovered the hidden treasure of London’s food scene.  Food markets!  Specifically, the Borough Markets.

Savoy cabbage - how very British

We had just  been to the Tower of London and I’d had the dubious honour of paying 20p for the world’s most disgusting public toilet.  So we went in search of lunch, and upon the recommendation of our friend Tori, headed for Southwark.

Words cannot describe how happy this discovery made me.  I knew you had it in you Britain!  We started lunch by sharing a plate of Raclette – a delicious combo of melted Raclette cheese, potatoes, gherkins and sweet onions.  We sampled our way through the markets and then finished up with dessert.  I had what may well have been the world’s best (and richest!) brownie and Julian had a coconut and ginger slice thing which was also amazing.

Because I know you aren’t all as obsessed with food as I am, I’ve made a gallery of all my photos, so anyone who is interested should go there to check out the many photos I took.

This trip is turning out to be quite educational. For instance, today Julian was amazed to discover that Australians did not, in fact, invent pluggers. Rather, they were around as long ago as Ancient Egypt. We broadened our cultural horizons by seeing the original Magna Carta (once we eventually found it – it appears maps of British museums and libraries are designed to confound). I was excited to see some of Jane Austen’s work, including an early draft of Persuasion. We were both in awe of the British’s ability to bring enormous stone works home from Egypt, presumably by boat.

Natural History Museum, London

So far I have been singularly unimpressed by British food. We had bangers and mash yesterday, which was fine, but not exactly mind-blowing. I did have a delicious wrap for lunch today, but it was from Pret-a-Manger…clearly not British inspired.

We went to Brick Lane tonight to experience the famous curry houses. I’m a big fan of Indian and it was delicious although perhaps not as amazing as suggested.  Thanks to  Tori for showing us around her neck of the woods.

We have also taken the extravagant step of booking in for lunch at Benares, a Michelin starred Indian restaurant presided over by Atul Kochhar. I’m hoping it also lives up to the hype – this was one of the recommendations made by our friends Dave and Jill, who gave me the Michelin guide for my birthday. If I can take photos I will, and either way I’ll let you know how it goes!

Iconic London: Big Ben & The Tube

This morning we checked the BBC weather site for London. It provided us with a 12-hour forecast: Light Rain, followed by Heavy Rain, then a Heavy Rain Shower, clearing to Sunny Intervals, followed by a Sleet Shower, then a Hail Shower, a Light Snow Shower and finally Partly Cloudy. I was not aware there were so many types of precipitation, and to think we would have the privilege of experiencing them all in one day!

Alas, it was not to be. We toured the neon-lit Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, all the while with grey-blue skies and not a drop of rain in sight until the walk home when a few flakes of snow (ok, it was probably sleet) fell to the ground.

The other two noticeable things about London are – it is clean, and it is efficient. The Underground system demonstrates both these things. It is litter- and graffiti-free. I can’t picture traveling 10m on a Brisbane train without spotting a piece of graffiti, in fact you will most likely have some on your window to accompany you during your journey. Not in London. The Tube is also very efficient, transporting 1 billion passengers a year. Everything is uni-directional, crowds of Londoners move quickly like lemmings and the whole system is supported by an even bigger above-ground public transport network.

Pedestrians in London are recklessly impatient. I’m not entirely sure they understand the meaning of the little red and green men. Conceding defeat in this area, the council has, rather than re-train the masses, painted in large white letters on the road LOOK RIGHT at the entry of every crossing. It does little to slow the impetuous pedestrians down and they continue to strip layers of red paint off the double-decker buses they time so well to avoid. Did I mention London is efficient?

Big Ben

Just a quick update to let you all know we made it to London!  Not too many dramas.  Will give you a better update soon.