One Has to go to London for Good Mexican Food - Days Three and Four

Day Three – A Walking Tour

The day started with getting Sarah up, fed—an English Breakfast—and off to cover the exhibit for the day.  Separately we had only three goals for the day…see the inside of St. Paul’s Cathedral…tour the Tower Bridge…meet Sarah in time for the Theater.
Since we had all day, and we wanted to feel like we’d accomplished something, we decided to walk our way around the sights.  Heading out from our B&B near Victoria Station we walked up to Westminster Abbey, turned left at the statue of Winston Churchill, and up Whitehall Street to Trafalgar Square.  From the square we worked our way down the Strand and into the City of London proper.  Along the way we stopped at Twinings Tea (the original offices and shop) to pick up some types that Cheri hasn’t found in the USA.  We walked in, had said tea in hand, and the lights went out.  It was a planned outage but the staff were unsure how long they would be without power and the cash registers (electrically powered) didn’t work, so we headed out empty-handed.
Back on the sidewalk the Strand becomes Fleet Street and a little walking later brought us to St. Paul’s—a total walk of about three miles; a pretty good start.
Inside the Cathedral there are various tours, but we already had it in our mind (and Sarah had strongly encouraged) that we would climb the stairs to the upper parts of the dome.  Photos were not allowed inside of the Cathedral so the pictures are a little limited, but there are a few from various spots just outside.
We found the stairway and after reading the obligatory warnings about it being 275 steps to the Whispering Gallery, started on our way.  The Whispering Gallery is a seating area around the lowest point of the dome and provides a great view of the center altar and down into the various wings of the Cathedral.  Supposedly, if it is quiet in the Cathedral, when you whisper on one side of the gallery you can be heard 30 meters away on the other side of the gallery.  Although many people were attempting this, there was too much ambient noise for it to work. 
The circular stairway up to this point is wide enough to allow passage both up and down, but from this point on it is one narrow stairway made of stone up and a separate one down.  We came out on the Stone Gallery which provides a nice walk around the outside of the dome at its lowest exterior point before beginning to curve to the peak. 

From this point we climbed between the exterior of the dome and the inner ceiling of the dome.  It meant going up a circular stairway about 20 feet and then going across a walkway about 20 feet towards the center of the dome.  That way we’d climb, move in, climb, moving in… The photo of Cheri shows a section of the climb.  What isn’t obvious is the braces supporting the outer dome to the inner dome are all wood held together with steel clips.  I am sure my fellow engineers will attribute this to a strength to weight ratio for the complex loading of arced structure supporting an arced structure.  Either way it was very interesting to see.

Almost to the top we came to a small room with a glass in the floor.  This was over the uppermost point  of the interior portion of the dome and you could see down to the floor 90 meters (about 91 yards or 273 feet) below. The dark brown area towards the bottom is the total narthex area with the altar table in white and the dark areas at the top are seats for approximate 300 people.

 
From that room we climbed a little more and then went to the outside of the cupola.  The wind was blowing hard, but it wasn’t cold and we had a fantastic view.  Once again using the gorilla tripod and a handy piece of iron railing, I was able to get a windy shot of us with some of London in the background.  You can see more of London in the collage below and below that a panoramic view along and up the Thames.

 

Since it was only a little after noon by this point we decided to pop into a place called Eat. and have a quick lunch.  From there we walked about another three miles to arrive at the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.  The bridge exhibit allowed us to walk up into the tower at one end (more stairs), cross the upper pedestrian walkway to the other end and then head back down the other tower to the original engine room for powering the bascules bridge—a bridge the uses counter-weights and a seesaw effect to raise each side.  There were some great displays of the bridges history and information about various significant bridges around the world. The engine rooms and hydraulic lift systems were great to see and a bit of high-end 19th Century technology—interesting to me…less so for Cheri. As we came out of the Tower Bridge and crossed by the Tower of London, I made up the engineering portion of the tour by getting Cheri some hot crunchy peanuts from a street vendor.  They smelled good and tasted even better. The final key part of the day was to get back in time to meet Sarah at the Palladium.  We walked back to St. Paul’s, caught the tube back to Victoria Station, rested up from the ten miles of walking (plus the stairs on top), and headed back out to Oxford Circus to meet Sarah.  The show was fun and followed the original story fairly well.  The music had people up and clapping along.  It was fun to see and we had great seats. After the show we headed back to the Belgravia area and had a great dinner at a local restaurant.  All in all a great day of Adventure.

It was interesting to see the construction of the towers and the methods for bringing the various components together.  We were also treated to some more unique views of London and of the Tower Bridge itself. Since we had now had some peanuts it was only a short walk to the Hung Drawn and Quartered pub to wash them down.  This was a pub I saw on our last visit to London and wanted to try just because of the name.  The sign to the left was on the outside of the pub and just added to the overall experience.

Day Four – Revisiting Previous Sites

The next day we were up a little later than usual, and that was because Sarah didn’t need to be at the exhibit until 10:30 and we planned on a late breakfast.  One problem happened right off when we headed down to the dining room and found out that I had mistakenly heard breakfast from 7:30 to 9:30 when in fact it only goes to 9:00.  We got there about 9:15…oops.  Fortunately, we found a good place just around the corner so we were able to get Sarah fed before sending her off. 
We did lounge for a little since we had no big plans for the day, but we did want to get to the half-price theater ticket booths in Leicester Square soon after they opened at 10.  So we caught the tube, headed into the square and we were able to get some theater tickets for Friday night as well.  We figured if we are here we should take advantage of the opportunity.

From Leicester Square we walked back down Charring Cross Road to Trafalgar Square.  Coming into the square we saw that a fair of some sort was taking place.  It turned out to be a Liberty festival celebrating the contribution of deaf and disabled people to London’s Culture.  We only passed through, but saw many great artists and saw strong support for the festival.

We toured the Cabinet War Museum and the Churchill Museum, both were wonderful but I did not get any pictures.  The Churchill Museum in particular had great information, interactive items and audio video displays of speeches and activities…very informative. As we left the museum we crossed the Horse Guard parade ground, went through the arch in the middle and came upon the inspection of the Horse Guard.  We did not spend much time there, but it was impressive once again to see the precision of their activities.

From Trafalgar Square we headed out through Admiralty Arch, around the Admiralty House and onto the Parade Grounds for the Horse Guard.  Security was high in the area and when I asked one of the Security Personnel both for directions to the Cabinet War Museum and what was going on, he put aside his automatic rifle and let me know that the G8 was meeting today in London (there at Whitehall). We stepped out onto Whitehall and as we walked back towards Trafalgar Square we realized that we usually were walking in the other direction and this was an opportunity to take a picture from this perspective. We went up into the square and then figured out how to get to Wahaca’s, a Mexican restaurant that Sarah took us to on our last visit.  With my blackberry and uncanny sense of navigation, we found our way there to have some more of the best, authentic Mexican food we have ever had…including in Mexico.

Then it was back to Victoria Station and to quickly change and head over to the Victoria Palace.  We had tickets to see the musical Billy Elliot, which was written by Elton John, and we had a fabulous time.  The music was great, the dancing phenomenal, and the young actor playing Billy (suppose to be 12 years old, and probably actually close to that age) was outstanding.  We enjoyed the musical thoroughly.
With the theater across from Victoria Station it was only a short walk for us back to the B&B.  Another adventure filled day in London completed to our tired satisfaction.