N and K’s European Vacation

Our last day of adventure was, indeed, excellent. We started early with a big traditional (mostly - mine was a vegetarian version) English breakfast at a diner, and then Dan and Samantha skillfully led us through train and tube connections to get us to the Tate Britain Museum. I actually wasn’t familiar with this museum before, but we enjoyed seeing some of this specifically British collection, which includes a huge number of Turner paintings. Then we took a boat down the Thames with our personal tour guides; fortunately this worked out better for us than for the people on all of those Turner ships! We alit at the Tower Bridge and then walked around the perimeter of the London Tower. Very interesting! We need to make time for a tour on our next visit. After a coffee, we took a double-decker bus to the very Brooklyn-esque neighborhood (neighbourhood, I suppose) of Dalston for an amazing lunch that Neal and I would NEVER have found on our own. Dalston is one of those areas that’s in the process being gentrified. We walked down a tiny side street to an area behind what were once warehouses; this area now houses a brewery, a bakery, and a restaurant called Acme Fire Cult with a tiny outdoor kitchen that creates delicious, seasonal dishes to share. We took the bus to gawk at St. Paul’s Cathedral; pictures can’t show how massive this church is! Another place to tour next time. After that we took various buses, trains, and the tube back to Dan and Samantha’s place in West London, where we went to their other favorite local pub and then watched parts of Glastonbury festival while enjoying wine and cheese. What a perfect way to end this epic trip.

1. Inside the “Tate Brit”
2. Tower Bridge selfie!
3. Tower of London
4. No idea what’s going on here. Fascinating people-watching in London!
5. Random building with pig
6. Menu from Acme Fire Cult
7. Memorial for the Fire of London
8. Queen Anne in front of St. Paul’s (photo credit Neal)
9. The path we took to the pub. Very restful after the bustle of central London
10. The Fox - the final pub of the tripLæs mere