London Report 6 - Hampton Court Palace, British Museum
Since my last report, we've done quite a bit. We did take a river cruise to Hampton Court Palace. It was both enjoyable and miserable at the same time. We were under the impression by looking online that the trip from Westminster Dock to Hampton Court was an hour and a half. It took three hours to get there. Thus cutting into our time at the palace. However, it was very pretty and relaxing and we got to see London from a perspective we'd otherwise never have. The palace was beautiful and we spent three hours going through it.
We decided to abandon our return trip on the boat, as we didn't want to get back to london after 8pm, and opted for a 35 minute train ride. Once we were back in London we took the tube to Trafalgar Square to hunt down a pub recommended by a friend of a coworker, The Harp. Ended up having a very pleasant chat with a local who recommended an italian restaurant, Topo Gigio's, where we went for dinner. After dinner we walked back to The Harp, stopping along the way at Leicester Square (which was a very active place, even at 10pm.
Yesterday we went to the British Museum and spent several hours looking at ancient artifacts from all over the world. I was, as always, fascinated by the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian works, but we also got to see a great deal of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and artifacts. One of the things we got to see were the friezes from the Parthenon. Amazing stuff.
After the museum we went down to Tower Bridge and did the tour there, which was pretty fun, and afterwards walked a ways to another of the old and historic pubs of London, the George Inn. It was super crowded though so we only went for a drink and then returned to 'our part of town'. While there we met some friendly locals (who had a flat just across the street) and recommended a spot for dinner (a place called Pizza Express, which is a chain we'd seen many times while here but were under the assumption it was like a Pizza Hut or something like it, but it was fantastic and the pizza was delicious!).
Today is the first day we don't have a lot to see. We'll have the next two days to relax. The locals we'd met last night highly recommended we take a bus that picks up right were we'd normally get on the Tube (bus 139) which is apparently a very enjoyable ride, that goes through a lot of the sights through town as it ends up at Waterloo station (including Abbey Road, Westminster, etc) so we're going to ride that around, perhaps go back to the Victoria area (near where we stayed while here in 2001) and wander around, and later perhaps we'll finally get to go to Ye Olde Meter. :)
