London Tourist Trail

 We set off this morning to tick off numerous touristy sites.

At the end of the road in which the apartment is located is an entrance to Kensington Park so we took the route through the park and then crossing over into Hyde Park and exiting at Hyde Park Corner where the NZ memorial is situated.

From there we continued on to Buckingham Palace where a very large crowd was gathering to watch the changing of the guard ceremony. As there was over half an hour before that was to commence (and all the good vantage points had been long since been taken) we decided to continue on.

We continued down the Mall to the Strand where we had a pit stop in a quiet cafe away from the noise and heavy traffic.

After our refresh we moved down to the Thames crossing on the Golden Jubilee bridge from where there were good views of both the London Eye and Big Ben

We then ventured down a very busy South Bank finding a cafe for lunch.

From there we continued west again getting a good side on view of Westminster and came across the National Covid Memorial Wall, a 500m stretch of wall painted with small red hearts in which folk had written names of family or friends who had died during the Covid period. While not every heart had been written on (at a guess around 70% had) the share volume that had made us realise how badly the UK had handled their response and how well NZ had.

We crossed back to the north side on the Lambeth Bridge and headed back east to Westminster then Westminster Abbey before taking a rest in Parliament Square where a blistered toe was attended to.

On we went passing Downing Street which was gated off, then passed The Women of World War 2 memorial before getting to The Royal Horse Guards.

As we continued onto Trafalgar Square who should we see coming out of a pub no other than Andrew Lloyd Webber.

At Trafalgar Square we sat in the sun for a while before onto Charing Cross Station where another packet of plasters was purchased from Boots The Chemist for more running repairs.

Now with both feet plastered we crossed back through Trafalgar Square onto the building housing the NZ High Commission and then onto a crowded Leicester Square.

Next stop was a coffee break before we took the underground to Knightsbridge and Harrods.

We spent some time wandering through Harrods looking at some lovely but very expensive items (a GBP53,000 piece of Lladro for example) and as it was now after 5pm we took the tube (3 very crowded tubes in fact) back to Paddington where we had a meal in a Lebanese restaurant.

A trudge home after dinner saw us back 9.5hrs and 15.9 walked kms since we left this morning.

A good day made better by NZ’s series win in the cricket.