purplecthulhu

As you may read elsewhere, purplejavatroll and handslive are visiting. Yay!!!!

I met them at Heathrow on Sunday morning. They landed at 6:20am, so I had to get there pretty early. Annoyingly, London Transport is asleep until 7am on a Sunday, so i had to set out from Bethnal Green before 5:30am and then walk towards Paddington and the Heathrow Express. I got a taxi at Euston, and arrived just on 7am at Terminal 4 to greet them.

Needless to say, the vagaries of air travel, immigration and customs meant that despite landing at 6:22am they didn't emerge until after 8am, so I needn't have been quite so rapid in getting up.

Having successfully met them, we headed back home for some late breakfast and a nap. Somewhat later, we visited the Bethnal Green City Farm for one of their fine pan-bried bread lunches, and then headed into London for some initial tourist scouting.

So we headed first to Covent Garden, via Holborn tube and a walk along some historical streets. Much browsing took place at CG, with PJT saying it rather reminded her of New Orleans btu was less seedy. We then headed south to the river, wandcering through some very colourful gardens to the new Hungerford footbridge and across the Thames. We had spectacular views upstream, towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Much snapping took place. We then all needed to facilitate so headed into the Festival Hall for that and some book browsing. Much mroe browsing then took place at the regular book fair outside the NFT as we gradually made our way downstream towards Tower Bridge.

We went past the South Bank, the OXO Tower, The Globe theatre, which was just starting a show, Tate Modern and the London Mayoral Assembly Building before finally reching tower bridge. All along we had spectacular views across the river at all of the new and hostorical buildings there. I was very impressed with the quality and state of the buildings on both sides of the river. When I was a student here over 10 years ago much of these areas were rather dingy, with semi-derelict warehouses mixed in with new and restored buildings. All that has now changed, with either new office or apartment complexes or restored and maintained older buildings. Some hostorical remains have been uncovered, including the palace of the Bishop of Winchester, which used to house the Clink prison. These remains include a wonderful medieval rose window.

At Tower Bridge we looked further downstream to Tooly Street, home of the London Dungeon. This area of old warehouses is now spick and span, with new walkways stretching over the road at all hights. What appears to have been an old brewery buts onto the river looking across to St. Catherine's Dock and the Tower of London. Excellent views all round, including the legendary Erotic Gerkin now being built in the City.

We were by this time in need of sustenance, so, after an abortive search for an old coaching pub I once knew in the area, we crossed the bridge to the Charles Dickins Pub in St. Cat's Dock, and from there, invigorated by Old Speckled Hen, headed for home.