Greater London

Today started with visiting 2 famous roads and finished at you-know-where.

We were out the door just before 8am to catch buses (rather than the Underground) to our first destination - Abbey Road. Loss was VERY keen for this as she is a Beatles fan from way back😉 - so I went along for the ride to humour her.

We found it without any trouble and I did the obligatory pedestrian crossing at this famous location that featured on the album cover of the same name. We sent a message home to the kids to have a look at the live Webcam that has been installed at the site (which they duly did) and they did in fact see us (and captured some screenshots of us holding up the traffic unnecessarily) to ‘relive’ this moment from 1969. It was all a bit of fun - but it was very bleak this morning so we took a brisk walk then bus ride(s) to our second famous road - Portobello road, Notting Hill.

I have created a separate footprint for the kids for this one. (Adults, if you have no interest in Paddington bear and his love for Portobello road then don’t bother with that footprint).

We had a bit of a look around the district, noting the variety of pastel painted houses which are a well known feature of this area.

It was now time to return to the British museum again as we had ‘unfinished business’.
A brisk walk to the Tube station (partly in order to stay warm) saw us arriving at the Museum around 10.30am. There was no queue and we quickly picked up where we had left off yesterday. About 2.5 hours of solid work and photography got us to the point in the book where we finally read the words ‘You have now completed your tour of the Museum’. The only disappointment was that 2 rooms that we wished to inspect were closed due to staffing shortages. We tried to convince / coax/ bribe one of the staff members to allow us in - but alas we will have to get someone else to inspect and take the photos in these rooms for us another time.

We had a 20 minute lunch break in The Great Court area before heading to our next activity - a trip down one of London’s canals in a canal ‘narrowboat’. The boat departed Little Venice at 2.30pm and we were cutting it fine. Another brisk 15 minute walk, followed by an unseemly sprint at the finish to catch the required bus - then another jog after we got off the bus - saw us arriving with minutes to spare at the dock at Little Venice.
We probably would never normally have thought to book this trip, but it was an inclusion on the London Pass we had been using to gain ‘free’ access to all the things we had done so far (bar the Churchill museum and the London Eye).
The 45 minute trip up this London canal was surprisingly enjoyable and the expert commentary was very informative. The history and importance of the extensive network of canals through England was relatively unknown to us both.

Well, there was no delaying it any longer - it was time to man-up and head to Harrods. As we exited Knightsbridge underground I could barely keep up with Loss as she fairly sprinted in the direction the signs were leading her.

There were 3 areas she was particularly interested in inspecting - the food hall, the children’s toys and clothing section, and the shoe department. All of these filled me with fear and dread.

We eventually emerged from Harrods’ clutches with the final damage not as bad as I had feared. Some grandchildren’s gifts were purchased, but fortunately I was eventually successful in convincing her that the Louis Vuitton shoes that she had homed in on didn’t look that good on her . . .🤫

A tube ride back to Russell Square had us walking through the door just after 6pm - our last day of exploring London. It has been really enjoyable and busy and the weather was very kind to us overall.

Tomorrow we plan to pick up a a rental car to use for touring the rest of the UK during the coming weeks.Read more