12 July London Day 2

I think these long hours of daylight are going to kill us! It was late to bed for the boys again last night (10pm) and up at 7.30am in order to get to breakfast before it finishes - they could really have done with an extra couple of hours sleep - and so could I! Unfortunately, the same seems to have happened again today - with them in bed earlier (9pm) but refusing to fall asleep until almost 10!

We awoke this morning to clouds - but a slightly warmer morning than yesterday. Some clouds hung around for most of the day, but there was patchy sunshine from about midday. Will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings as BBC1 gave the forecast on the 6pm news as being for 30/31C tomorrow and the rail stations all had announcements playing about drinking plenty of water and seeking help from a staff member if you felt unwell. Ppfffttt - should be a rather pleasant sort of day!

Anyway, we started the day by visiting a local grocer to purchase some of his lovely fresh fruit to take with us, plus the provisions we had purchased last night. The food opportunities are sometimes thin on the ground, given I'm not overly familiar with the city and I'm already a touch over meat and chips in its various formats as being an acceptable meal. I also have an aversion to paying double the price at 'tourist' establishments!

From there is was a quick walk to the overground train station to get a travelcard for me and then hopped on a bus to travel up to the closest Tube station. There are a few reasons for not taking a train from the place of ticket purchase - first, we are within walking distance of the Train station, but not the Tube and none of the shops near to us sell the 1 day 'all day as much as you like' travelcard that is the best thing for me to have, so nearest purchase place is the train station. Secondly, only I have to pay to ride on Tube & Buses, the boys travel free so why would I pay to take them 4 stations on the train to then change to the Tube and finally, the Tube line we are on out here is the Central Line and that is really convenient and means we usually only have to change once, rather than twice or three or four times when we go the other way. Plus, the boys were "dying" to go on a red double decker bus!

Driving the bus from the top deck!

We ended our journey at Marble arch, where Jacob was like a little terrier puppy, wanting to chase the pigeons! From there we crossed the road into Hyde Park and spent the next several hours meandering through various parts of both Hyde and Kensington Parks, enjoying the sunshine and sights.

Pigeon boy

Marble Arch - designed for the palace, Queen Victoria didn't like it , so apparently had a carriage made that wouldn't fit, so it got moved.

Sculpture near Marble Arch

also near Marble Arch, very detailed, but no idea who it is etc as there was no plaque

Open area of Hyde Park where there is a fair set up

Throughout the park are areas like this with deck chairs that you can hire by the hour in order to sit and sun yourself

Just to remind you that you are in the middle of a major city!

This was where we sat and ate fresh sweet strawberries and bananas for morning tea

In the "Rose Garden" a part of the Princess Diana memorial walk through the park

The Holocaust memorial

Walk along one side of Serpentine Lake

The swans were busy in the middle of their morning ablutions - they were either eating, preening or sleeping; with the ducks and people looking on

Sunning his feet? Drying his feet?

This one was having a kip on the ground, but we also saw several who were like this floating on the water

Princess Diana memorial fountain

I had purchased tickets yesterday for the London eye, so we exited the park onto the Kensington High Street (what a place) and found a "Whole Food Market" - a foodie heaven and exactly the sort of thing we wanted for lunch as they sold produce, but also had a bakery with too many products to choose from, a very large fridge cabinet of pre-made sandwiches, wraps, salads, soups etc and THEN 4 buffet style tables of pre-made and single salad components that one could use to "create your own salad experience" - oh to experience more!! Thus fed, we headed in to the Eye.

At the edge of Kensington Park is the Albert Memorial which is a stunning monument

There are four of these on the memorial - this one is Commerce with the others being Agriculture, Engineering and Manufactures

The four corners are regions - this one is Africa, with the others being Asia, Europe and Americas

Directly opposite the Albert Memorial is the Royal Albert Hall

The man himself

The south flower walk - also known as the home of many squirrels

This one was eating the bark of the tree, until he saw us - the next thing we know.......

there he was just 30cm from my shoes.

You can tell I can read - didn't see the no photo sign till after I snapped! No photos allowed in this street at all - must be important people that live there in the very very very lovely looking houses/apartment blocks that were in the street

Yesterday at the same time the line was about half the size of today, but luckily, it does move fairly quickly. We covered the distance in about 45 mins. About half way through the 2 people in the line ahead of yes suddenly turned into 20 as the rest of their party arrived with the tickets they had just purchased. They didn't stop to think that the staff at the end of the line were marking the tickets of people who had joined the back of the queue! They got to 'the final stretch' to have the tickets checked and be taken out of the line and sent to the back!!! Justice, although it was short-lived. Having suddenly surged ahead we were now in front of them, when they had obviously pleaded their case and were being allowed back in the line, much to the chagrin of the people behind them, one of who took it upon themselves to voice their displeasure to several members of the group.

The pod in front of us was empty

The line! It starts back under those trees on the top left side of the picture and runs down past the circular looking booth in the centre of the shot. From just near the white umbrellas you walk across the Southbank travelling crowd to join the line closer to the Eye!

What followed was amazing - if you visit London and haven't yet gone on the Eye, I would highly recommend it - but you might want to go in a month other than July or August!

By this stage our feet were complaining bitterly and the late nights were catching up - so we headed back to the hotel for some down time. At a loss of where we could find a decent sit down restaurant (as opposed to what Aussies know as a 'take away' - which also doubles here as a 'restaurant') we headed back onto the Tube and the station of Stratford, which is home not only to Olympic Park but also a very large Westfield Shopping Centre. Glad we did, we found this great restaurant "The Real Greek" - and filled ourselves with Souvlaki, flat bread, hummus and ice cream. As luck would have it a wrong turn out of the station on our return led us to find a rather decent looking Chinese restaurant and a nice Italian place just near the Tube station, so dinner for the remainder of our stay in this location appears to be sorted.