London Report 4 – St Paul’s, Tate Modern

Hey gang. Bad news, the WiFi access we'd been leeching off of got wise and blocked us. So we no longer have free internet from the hotel (meaning, these reports are bound to get a bit less frequent, as now we have to go to an internet cafe and pay).

Yesterday we covered quite a bit of ground. We first went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was amazing. The inside was impressive enough, then we climbed steps (a lot of steps) to get to the 'Whispering Gallery' which is a balcony surrounding the inside of the massive dome. Then we climbed more steps to the 'Stone' and 'Golden' galleries, which were both outdoors on the outside of the dome. The first being nearly the lowest outer point on the dome, the latter being near the very top. We climbed some 425+ steps to get all the way to the top, and then had to go back down. Needless to say we were a bit 'wobbly-legged' but it was worth it, the view was stunning.

Afterwards we walked toward the Millenium Bridge (which crosses the Thames and ends at the Tate Modern gallery. On our way however, we came across this pub called The Center Page and decided to have a pint. While there Kelly was reading the menu which had all manner of trivia, and one of these "Did you know?" items said that none other than the world famous David Hasselhof visits there whenever he's in town, as he was charmed by the name of the street the pub is found on. I look out the window and sure enough, we're on Knightrider Lane. Heh.

Anyway, after a quick pint we walked across the Millenium Bridge (which was pretty neat) and explored the Tate Modern. We got to see some impressive art actually, such as works by Dali, Mondrian, & Miro. The Tate Modern is also right next to the replica of the famous Globe Theater, so we took a few photos of the outside before walking back across the river.

We decided to wander around in search of some of the historic pubs we'd found online before came. We only had vague dots on a map to point us in the right direction, and while we got a bit turned around once, we finally found one, and it was closed (Ye Olde Mitre), but did find another (Cittie of Yorke) and had a pint. On the way home we decided to go to the Soho district (which was packed with upper-scale shops and shoppers) and wandered around for a bit, stopping at a few pubs along the way.

Finally we made it back to the hotel, changed clothes and went out for dinner. We ended up back at the Inn 1888 for a meal, and The Globe for a final pint. The Globe was PACKED with people watching the Chelsea vs. Liverpool match, screaming and cheering when Liverpool won.

That's it for now, we're going to get going for the day. Hopefully I'll write again soon.