Thursday
After taking the train from Bristol back into London we had half a day to explore. We decided to head east to the Hackney Wick area to explore street art, gardens, and the V&A East Storehouse. The Mildmay line from the West Brompton station got us directly across the city.
The area around the Hackney Wick station is completely under construction but there are still several murals worth checking out.
From here we headed to the Old English Gardens in Victoria Park, which were underwhelming. A lot of open grassy space with narrow paved lanes that pedestrians have to share with bicyclists.
However, the walk back along the Hertford Union canal area was surprisingly flush with paste-ups, murals and fun characters. Just watch out for the bicyclists!
We got our first glimpses of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park across the canal but the main area is mostly covered in concrete. The small “Great British Garden” was a disappointment in terms of flowers but Eric got to be a human sundial.
On the way back to our hotel, we took the same line toward Richmond thinking that would get us where we needed to go but… whoops, we needed the Clapham Junction route instead. We ended up in Acton Town before we noticed the mistake and had a nice long walk to switch stations in order to take the Piccadilly line a couple stops back east.
Saturday
We explored on foot this morning, walking north from our hotel to Holland Park which was busy with lots of families and dog walkers. The Kyoto Garden was nice but small and busy with people taking photos. However, the Dutch garden was a pleasant surprise, boasting a surprising number of colorful annuals.
We took a small detour to the nearby Gnome Garden (charming) and the iconic Tower House before heading to a place Eric picked out for lunch.
One of the main goals for today was to see the Choral Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral. We easily got a seat at 4:30pm and enjoyed the 45 minute service. The sound under the dome was amazing! No photos are allowed during the service, but we managed to snap a few pics beforehand. So nice to get to see the cathedral interior for free. The last time I went was with a college group in 1997!
Sunday
We started a bit of a later today, with St James’s Park our first stop. We spotted several water birds, flowers, and about twenty teenage tour groups.
We wound our way past the Mall (decorated with French and UK flags) and Guards Road over to our favorite wine bar, Gordon’s.
After a few museum and wine stops, it was time for our show, The Comedy About Spies! When we arrived at the theatre, the queue wrapped around the building and snaked into the courtyard. We were informed that the play was going to start (at least) a half hour late, which meant we weren’t going to make our dinner reservations. Eeep! I had no cell signal to make the change online so we jumped out of line and speed walked to the restaurant to change our resy in person then got back in the line again. No issues on timing as we still had to wait about 20 minutes once in our seats. We had row F almost exactly in the middle of the stalls (the Noel Coward isn’t huge) so we could see all the action on stage. The show itself was hilarious and totally worth it. Many laugh out loud moments and I will never handle a bottle of Shiraz the same way again!
Monday
The hotel allowed us a late checkout, so at 12:30pm we left our luggage in the lobby and I walked south to Chelsea to meet my aunt for lunch while Eric went east on the tube to the Westminster Cathedral.
Eric’s afternoon started with the little Ben clock outside Victoria Station.
Then the Westminster Cathedral (not Abbey!), the largest Catholic Church in England. Still under construction, it has a large central nave that is mostly unfinished, while some of the side chapels are quite ornate.
Later that evening we got one last view of the Earl’s Court Underground before bidding goodbye to London.
