London (the 100 mile journey, part 2)
We arrived in London the day before the Scottish independence vote, which might explain the bagpipe player on Westminster Bridge. In case you missed the news, the final vote was 55% no, 45% yes and an amazing 85% voter turnout. So Scotland will remain part of the UK, but with a need for greater involvement over their affairs.
Our first stop in London was the half-price ticket booth for theatre tickets. We had three nights in London and saw three plays! I love the 7:30pm start time and many of the theatre’s are much smaller than in NYC so you sit closer to the stage.
We saw Shakespeare in Love, Matilda and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.
The weather was great in London so we continued everywhere on foot, logging an additional 27 miles for a total of 63 miles. We set off on our first morning for the Borough Market on the south bank, a feast for the senses.
We continued on to the Beefeater Distillery for a tour of the only gin still made in London. Beefeaters has 9 different herbs and botanicals in it but the predominant one must be juniper to be considered a London Gin. The tour included a chance to touch and smell all the ingredients, and a gin and tonic!
Another activity was to take pictures of signs that made me laugh.
Our only sit-down dinner was at NOPI but we had delicious take out salads from Baker & Spice, a gourmet takeout place right around the corner from our bed and breakfast, B+B Belgravia. Our B+B was clean, simple and provided a full English breakfast. We were on the top floor, 50 steps up, which added to our daily mileage!
We squeezed in a visit to the National Gallery and took advantage of a free tour that highlighted several paintings and gave us a good orientation to the museum.
And then we were off, taking the train to Paris which delivered us across the channel in just over two hours.
