Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Lynne's Last Day

Sunday was Lynne's last day in London.  She had asked  before she came to see the Courtauld Gallery, which I have mentioned here before, so we decided to head there.

We didn't really get going until noon.  I had hoped that we could walk through the Inns of Court's gardens, but they were all closed.  So we walked to Fleet Street.  On the way, we visited the campus of King's College, which has a  beautiful main hall.....

And a statue of Confucius in the garden.
I was really hungry, so we stopped at the George, a really great old pub on Fleet Street, for lunch.
The pub is right across the street from one of the most impressive buildings in the city, the Royal Courts of Justice....

It looks like a fairy castle.

After the gallery, Lynne and I took our own version of a pub crawl.  First we stopped at the Wellington, right by Waterloo Bridge, then the Coal Hole, where Lynne started talking to these two fellows at the bar, who actually bought us an apple pie as a welcome to the country.  Here they are from the back.  I took this picture before we started talking.
Anyway, we weren't too sure about these guys, so we went to our next stop--the bar at the Savoy Hotel.  Here's a view from the lobby.  Beautiful flowers-and yes they are real.
So we are sitting at the Savoy bar and who should walk in but they two guys from the Coal Hole, meeting four lovely young girls.  We laughed.  Who would have thought we would have the same itinerary...Coal Hole to Savoy.  They did not see us and we were happy about that.

We made our way back to Shoreditch pretty early which was good since Lynne had to be picked up by a taxi at 5AM to make her flight.  (The subways don't even start running until 5:30AM.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is Lori. Sounds like you are having a great time and taking full advantage of everything London has to offer. Grant and I wanted to visit Hampstead/HighGate because of the book we read about the cemetery there - "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, but our itinerary is pretty full aleady, and it sounds kind of out of the way. Have you heard anythign about the Ripping Yarns Walking Tours? I heard it was quite something.

Alice R. said...

Lori, Hampstead looks far out but it's 20 minutes on the underground. And it is so beautiful. I highly recommend it, if you have the time.

Alice R. said...

I have not heard about the Ripping Yarns, but it sounds interesting. There are a lot of guided walks here, many having to do with ghosts and the macabre.