Day 82: Exploring London

Since there were three more UNESCO sites in central London we wanted to see, we decided to pick up a three day London Pass with discounted entry to those sites, plus several others as well. Saved us a reasonable amount of money, but came with the slight downside of needing to pack everything in to the next three days.

But we steeled ourselves, and headed off into the city around 9am. Short walk to Angel tube station where we went the single stop to King's Cross, where lucky for us our hop-on/hop-off was waiting! They aren't super frequent so we ran the last hundred metres to ensure we made it. Hardly anyone on board which was nice, so we grabbed some good seats on the exposed upper deck and settled in for the drive around the city.

It was quite slow due to the morning rush hour and we didn't make a lot of progress around the eastern side of the city, but eventually made it past St Paul's and across Tower Bridge. It wound along Southbank and we decided to hop off on the western end, just near Waterloo station. From here we walked across Westminster bridge and then wandered around, looking at Westminster palace and the Abbey.

Headed into the Abbey and spent quite a while marvelling at the burials and memorials of all the famous people and not-so-famous people. Everyone from Isaac Newton, a memorial to Shakespeare, church notables and also a plumber for some reason! Unfortunately photos and videos aren't permitted inside the church (I'd applied for a filming permit but was denied since there is restoration work happening), so not sure how I'm going to make a UNESCO video out of here!

By the time we'd finished it was lunchtime, so we grabbed a quick sandwich and kept wandering. Wanted to look at nearby 10 Downing Street, but the entire street is now closed off (it's a short cul-de-sac) and you can't get anywhere near it. Large iron gates, ground bollards to stop ram-raiders, and of course lots of police and soldiers.

Next stop was just nearby: Churchill's War Rooms. These were a series of underground bunkers and rooms where Churchill and his staff worked and lived during the war. Despite being in the centre of London, basically directly underneath Whitehall and at a surprisingly shallow depth, they were never hit by German bombs. The whole facility had been essentially locked up and discarded a couple of years after the war, so it was preserved really well and was essentially unchanged from the final few days of the war until the present day. Very interesting stuff, and one area was devoted to Churchill and his career. It sort of glossed over how he was responsible for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in WW1 though!

Emerging blinking out onto the busy streets again, we walked through St James's Park down to Buckingham Palace for a quick look. Not much to see here as it wasn't time for changing of the guard, and the Union Jack was flying rather than the Royal Ensign, indicating that Liz wasn't home. We walked back down the Mall (quite a distance!) and then headed into Trafalgar Square for a look around.

Took some photos, then visited a nearby pub named the Chandos - Shandos's namesake! Not many things bear her name, so we made the most of it! The (Australian) jerk behind the bar declined my polite request for drinks on the house though. Drinks imbibed, we hopped back on the Tube and headed home. A little more wandering around Angel on the way back lead us past a house with a plaque dedicated to Caroline Chisholm who had lived there in the 19th century. Australians will of course remember her from the old $20 note.

Back to our room where we collapsed exhausted from our walking. 18,000 steps (or 12.5km) according to my pedometer! Just time for spaghetti with pesto for dinner accompanied by a cheap bottle of local cider. It's going to be a busy few days!Read more