Travels in History: Saturday in London

Since the children and grandma are arriving very early Sunday morning, we went into London on Saturday to stay overnight and make it to Heathrow in time for the flight. Of course we entertained ourselves in London first!

History does matter, especially when it is historic water mains! If you can't read it, one of the lines says that about 40% of the pipes are at least 100 years old. I hope someone is paying attention to this history.

Our first destination was Tate Britain, but of course we walked around a bit first. And Alex took photos.

We walked around Westminster, but we did not go in. The lines were long, and the price high. And we have been there before.

The sun came out a little on the Houses of Parliament.

We walked the long way around, but finally arrived at the Tate. And our first stop was the cafe for lunch, but then we went on to the Turners, at the moment displayed in the larger context of the Romantics.

We also enjoyed the gallery of the classics from the collection.

And then for something completely different: Portobello Road. We had enjoyed the antiques market at Covent Garden on Mondays, and we figured why not see what the really big market was like.

The answer: full of people. But quite fun, and great for the people watching. We did not buy much, some coffee spoons. But we looked at lots of fun stuff, and watched crazy people.

It must be crazy to live near there on a Saturday. After that we headed back to the West End, where we had tickets to The Mousetrap. I say it in the early 1980s, but I did not remember it exactly, and Alex had not seen it. Since it has been playing continuously since 1952, we thought we should help them keep that record up. So we located the theater and picked up our tickets at will-call before finding a place to have dinner.

It has been playing here since 1974. Before that it was at the Ambassador next door.

Most things don't get a blue plaque until they are dead and gone.

We ended up eating at a pub called The Cambridge. Good food, and not crazy expensive. And an appropriate name for our trip.

We had seats up near the top, but the view was great. We were not supposed to take photos, but I didn't think one before the show would hurt.

The play was great, and I am not going to tell you who did it. I did not remember too much of it at all, and I am never any good at figuring out mysteries.

We took the tube to Earl's Court where we were staying in an EasyHotel (from the same people who brought us EasyJet).

This is one of those minimalist places, just a bed and a shower room. But when we checked in they gave us the handicapped accessible room, so it did not feel that small. No frills (no chair, no desk, you pay extra for the TV), but we were there for about 8 hours, so it was just what we needed, and the price was right.