London Town

      

                                              Buckingham Palace

Our hotel the Kingsway Hall is in a good area in Covent Garden, except for the fact the transport driver couldn't get near it because of an underground gas leak and fire that happened only streets away a few days before we arrived. Kay and I had to  walk a couple of streets with our bags and arrived to find the street closed to both traffic and pedestrians down one end from the hotel. It means every time we want to walk in a certain direction, it takes longer to arrive. There was a police presence outside the hotel turning people back and barricades everywhere while repair work goes on.

We arrived from Dublin on British Airways flight late afternoon but managed a cab ride on dusk out to view Kennington Water Tower that had featured on Grand Designs and Kay wanted to see. I had been interested also. The taxi driver had no idea where it was had never heard of it but was helpful in finding the address for a glimpse of the top of the tower which is quite impressive. Of course I had a first timers tour of London as we looked for the water tower and was gob smacked when we drove past Trafalgar Square and saw Nelson's column. 

                                      

      

That first night we had dinner in a nice Italian Restaurant Ciao Bella in Covent Garden and got instructions from the waiter how to get back to our hotel.

       

        

Day two saw us doing the pre booked Black Taxi tour with Michael Churchill. We were lucky that there was only the two of us as arranged and we had a great overview of London. We saw the Changing of the Guard, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square. Houses of Parliment, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and various modern buildings around the city and exclusive houses. He explained lots of interesting facts about The city and was very informative. 

Buckingham Palace has a forty acre garden where the Queen as a young girl would peer out at the people going by. The Prime Minister sees the Queen every Wednesday via an underground tunnel from Downing St to Buckinham Palace. 

A London would be cabbie must do two or three years of driving around on a motor scooter in his own time and learn all the streets and points of interest before sitting a series of exams. We saw several on our route with clipboards in front of them to refer to. 

We were dropped off at an historic pub in Belgravia for lunch the the driver recommended and met up with Karen and David whom I hadn't seen in years. I first met them in New York in 1991 with Bec just after the Gulf War, where both had been caught up in the conflict and were enjoying a well earned holiday.  Karen spent a few weeks with us in 2001 so a few years have past inbetween.

     

     

                                          Lunch with Karen and David at the Grenadier Pub

         

                                                        Black Taxi tours

After lunch I had my first ride on the tube for our tour of the Tower. What history there must be between those walls. We saw the Crown Jewels along with the chapel where Anne Bolelyn is buried along with other well known historical figures. We followed the guide and learnt some grisly details, told with humour of course.

      

                                                            One of the Towers

       

                                        One of the  Beefeater guides.