One part travel blog. One part nerdy history lesson.

Day: April 7, 2015

Day 22 – Northern London

We are getting lazier the longer we stay in London 🙂 vacation is winding down…and so are we. Yesterday was a big day of walking so we were slow getting started. Kegan and I trekked the 10 minutes up to the subway station and grabbed coffee/breakfast and then headed for Baker St. A certain famous 221b Baker St. to be precise. 🙂 Home of the Sherlock Holmes Museum. 

But, when we got there, the line was down the block to get in…. Now, I may be weird…but I rarely queue up for anything. I think I find it insulting to my sensibilities or something…but I basically refuse. Lol so… After watching the line to see if it moved quickly at all…and seeing it not move at all in 5 minutes- we decided that it wasn’t that important 🙂

   

     

It was a really nice day…so we decided to hop on over to Warwick Ave. to see “Little Venice”. Beautiful little area.

   

      

Next, we were headed north into the northern suburbs to Highgate to see the grave of my favorite author, Douglas Adams. I’m calling it the ultimate nerd pilgrimage. Mostly because I had to take 2 subway trains, 1 overground train, walk uphill for a mile or so and then navigate to the right part of the cemetary to pay respects to a tombstone the size of a notebook. Lol I love that everyone leaves pens as tribute. Also, someone had left a towel, which in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, his most famous book, he states:

A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

So, I was happy to get to see the grave of a great author and “nerd out” a little 🙂

Randomly…we found out Karl Marx is buried here as well. 

   

              

We trekked on back home, went to an underground mall at our subway station and had a pretty boring night doing puzzles with Norah and doing some laundry 🙂

Tomorrow is our last full day! We have reservations for high tea at 2pm… I’m very excited to get dressed up and be fancy 🙂 

Day 21 -Downtown London and Westminster

Today was our downtown sightseeing day. 

We took the subway downtown. Norah was so excited to “ride the train”. She was making friends with everyone.

  

   

Mind the gap.   

 

View from the middle of London Bridge. 

      

   Memorial to the Great Fire of London. The majority of medieval London burned to the ground in 1666 and this marks where they believe the fire started- a bakery on old Pudding Lane

  

  

Big Ben    

  

  

  

Westminster Abbey  

 

The Abbey bell tower   

 

No idea what this building is…but the stone carvings were amazing.  

   

Randomly…there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln here. I didn’t expect that. In my googling, it seems that we sent this over to England in the 1910’s to mark “a hundred years of peace” between our countries… (Wonder if taxpayers paid for that… Haha)

 

Getting close to the queen… 

   St James Park 

 We went to the Churchill War Rooms. This is where Churchill directed most of the war from underground as bombs were hitting the city   

  

  They have used photographs to try and put everything back exactly as it was at the time of its use.

The War Cabinet meeting room 

They had a sign underground to let them know what the weather above ground was like 🙂    

They hid a transatlantic telecom room from most everyone in the underground bunker by putting a bathroom lock on it that read “engaged”. People just assumed it was a special toilet reserved for Churchill!   

This was actually what was on the other side of the door. Churchill spoke to FDR and Truman from here many times.    

The prime minister’s dining room

Chief of Staff map room with the original maps on the walls.     

Zoomed in as far as I could on a little Hitler graffiti. This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night. Who drew this?? Lol      

Churchill’s personal room , complete with cigar by bedside

  

A map that hung at the foot of his bed with strategic places bombs may be dropped by the Germans.

A casualty count and log of all the bombs falling on Great Britain.  

  

  

A vintage poster I thought was cool.

  

Many people don’t know that all the “Keep Calm” posters actually originate from the air raids of WW2.   

After the war rooms was a Churchill museum.    

Churchill, after the war, was given honorary US citizen status. He was too sick to come and accept it…but his son did.  

The original door from 10 Downing St

 

  

Chasing pigeons. I don’t think she’s ever had more fun. Haha

  

  

  

  

  Buckingham Palace

  

  

  

   

Wellington Arch at Buckinghan Palace. George the IV had this commissioned to commemorate Britain’s victory in the Napoleonic wars and it was supposed to be the gateway to Buckingham Palace.

  

      

We had a lazy evening. Walked back to the subway station and had some noodles at a place called Wagamama.