Ceci got to London about 12PM on Sunday, but there was such a crowd at immigration because of the Easter Holiday (?), it took forever to get through. We got back to the flat around 2:30. At about five we went for a whirlwind tour of the hot spots, Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Trafalgar and then had dinner in town.
We were going to go back to Hampstead on Monday, but found out most of the attractions were closed Monday and Tuesday, so instead we went to Elephant and Castle, an area that used to be very poor and Cockney. It's still not the best area, but like most of London, it is being upgraded. Apparently the biggest landmark is the colorful shopping center.....
With, of course, its elephant....
And market in the lower level....
We walked around the streets a bit and saw some old churches,
Some cute pubs, though this one was under construction...
And a market where you could buy 2 large cows feet for only 3 pounds.
Yuk!
The place was a typical neighborhood filled with row houses, but many were getting makeovers.....
We decided to walk back to Westminster, and passed the Royal War Museum (I think it is called)
With huge cannons in the front, just past the peace park with a monument that contained a message from the Dali Lama asking for everyone to try to get along.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day (again), so we stopped on the banks of the Thames for lunch.
That's the London Eye behind Ceci.
Then we took a guided walk with Jean .....
She looks very serious here, but actually she was a lot of fun. The walk was through parts of the City and the village of Clerkenwell, which is very close to my flat. We once again passed the monument to William Wallace, who was played by Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
This pub, by the Smithfield Markets, is essentially open all day and night to accommodate the people who do shift work at the market--despite the fact that there are very few of those people left.
And here's the gate to a former monastery that was, of course, destroyed by Henry VIII.
The funniest part of the tour was a look at this pub, called the Three Kings, but not the kings you might expect. Yes, there's Henry VIII, but also King Kong and Elvis on the sign outside.
By this time my dogs were barking, so we hopped on a bus and went home for a short time until we went to dinner at the Shoreditch Princess, a nice restaurant nearby my flat with one very busy waitress handling the whole crowd.
Tuesday, we started the day at Fortnum and Mason's Gallery Restaurant where we met Ceci's old friend Christina for tea. They knew each other from 1984, when Jim and Ceci spent a sabbatical year here. Very nice woman who reminded me a lot of Hugh Grant--posh accent, sly humor and floppy hair.
Our tea was abruptly ended when the fire alarm went off at the store and we evacuated. As far as I could tell, there was no fire, but I was concerned because of the recent attack on the store by anarchists. So we said goodbye to Christina and headed for the National Theater where we had tickets for Frankenstein. I thought we were going to see Johnny Lee Miller as the creature and Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein, but it was the other way around. It was a strange story with a lot of nudity, very unlike the stories we have seen in the movies. But Ceci had read the original by Mary Shelley and said it was actually quite close to that source. The acting was terrific.
Did I mention it was another beautiful day?
These are views from the Jubilee and Waterloo bridges.
Tuesday night, we met a group of knitters at Leon's in Spitalfields market.......
a group of generally very young women who were very nice. They confirmed my suspicion that Londoners are not looking forward to the Royal wedding as much as we are. They were shocked that US TV would even bother to send correspondents over. One said she was unhappy that she was going to have to pay for the festivities, though another pointed out that Westminster, where the wedding will take place, will no doubt not charge anything.
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