London - The Mother Country
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2010
1
15
18
Trip End
Aug 28, 2010
London, England, United Kingdom
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Why did it feel so relaxed to be in London? Having heard stories about this large city, with traffic, noise, hustle, we didn't quite know what to expect. However, as soon as we arrived, we felt comfortable and relaxed. It wasn’t just that we could understand what people were saying, having been used to being surrounded by locals in different countries, speaking anything but English.
It was being immersed in names and places that seemed familiar to us – Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Square, Leicester Square, Westminster Abbey, Soho, London Bridge and so on. From our Monopoly playing days, through to familiarity with names and places of London from papers, books, schooling, TV and movies, we knew where we were.
It also surprised us how close some of these places were together – many were within easy walking distance of each other, or it wasn’t far by Tube or bus. We had a grand time taking photos of street and place names – locals probably thought we were nuts, but to us, it was perfectly natural, as we had heard these names so often in our past.
Naturally, we did the rounds of the most common sites, but as our time was so short in London, we stayed fairly close to the central city area. We didn’t bother trying to get to Buck House and the Changing of the Guards, but we did drop into Number 10 (well, as close as we could get, anyway). Of course, walking along Oxford Street and Regent Street were a must and we loved Leicester Square with the huge lion statues. We found a statue of James Cook just inside Admiralty Arch, and to compliment the statue we photographed of Winston Churchill in Paris, we did same to the London statue. We couldn’t leave London without walking the London Bridge, too.
We have decided that along with a driving holiday around the UK, we really need to spend more time in London. This has nothing to do with the good pub-grub, or drinking pints of boutique beers. We feel that there a lot more to see and do in London, which can only be done with time on the ground.
As you may have gathered from previous Blogs, we have been enjoying seeing across Europe, Art and Inventions and the history of Leonardo da Vinci. By chance, to fill in some time on our last afternoon, we dropped into the London Museum, which was fairly close to our hotel. It happened that they had an Art Exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings, which included works from Leonardo. The Exhibition was due to close the next day, so it was an unexpected treat for us. The last time Betty-Anne had seen his original drawings was when there was a travelling display visiting Brisbane in the mid 1980s.
We are now in India, and have started our tour of Southern India, so are enjoying the change in food and culture. We are comfortable being back in Asia (despite the condition of this country), and love the sights, smells, mayhem and foods.
Best wishes to all,
Graeme & Betty-Anne
