Good beer remains a hard thing to find anywhere in the world apparently, but I have had a couple of not bad ones since we got here, so all is not lost. Must try to speed through a couple of days here now as otherwise I am never going to catch up with the present day... By popular demand, my blog, now with more pictures, fewer words...
On the morning of the 12th we wandered once again from our tidy little apartment on the other side of the river, this time over the famously once wobbly Millennium foot bridge towards the famously unshakable dome of St Paul's.
A visit to that famous cathedral was not yet not the cards, but we did manage a walk around the amazingly gothic halls of the Royal Courts of Justice, a place of very much interesting business both historic and recent
We met up with our local companions outside the entrance to the WWII Cabinet Warrooms Bunker and descended once again into the world of wartime Britain, walking the same halls as the great man and other leaders of the time and seeing the rooms where they deliberated the strategies that won the war, often while German bombs rained down overhead. Included was the impressive Winston Churchill museum that details his life and does much to humanise the iconic figure
From there it was a stroll around some more of the historic surrounds, along the way we stood and watched the tourists annoy these poor chaps
And then onwards (and upwards) to Westminster Cathedral... Once again an amazing place. I have been in very many old places of all shapes and forms across the world, and it is one thing to stand amongst the ruins and remains of a temple or a castle, or walk through a restored or reproduced site with interpretations of how things might once have been, It is, however, another thing entirely to stand and look up at the soaring ceilings of a church which has been a living thing, a site of continuous use, for over one thousand years, and is still today serving the same purpose.
Ancient tombs of kings and queens and towering monuments abounded inside, an aspiring photographer's dream the whole place. But no photos allowed though... Oh no no no.... Millions of feet wearing groves in the floor for hundreds of years, but no photos please....
A train took us out into the suburbs in the evening where we again enjoyed the company of our local hosts who treated us to a wonderful meal and we were able to share some of our precious cargo of NZ wine that we dragged with us around the world... Very VERY glad to say that the bottles we have partaken in so far have not disappointed, gratifying given how long I have been sitting on some of them.
Within we found the tombs of many more famous names including poets and soldiers, marvelled at the ceilings and saw the site of many coronations before climbing the 164,000 or so increasingly steep, narrow and winding sets of stairs to the very top platform of the dome, the rickety cast iron spirals in the upper sections putting shakes in the knees of my usually intrepid companion.
Once there we rested and enjoyed the much needed breeze, and thanked our stars we had not become stuck at various points on the way up behind one of the seemingly endless processions of fat tourist types lumbering skyward amidst panting and exclamations of how unexpectedly hard it was for them to push their flabby carcasses upwards against the apparently previously unnoticed forces of gravity. Odd considering they had all moved with the ease and grace of ballerinas only minutes earlier at ground level. It never ceases to amaze me how incensed they seem to get that their needs as obese adventurers had not been properly considered by the architects all those hundereds of years before. On a couple of occasions on the way up I had had to duck down and tuck in my shoulders to scrape my way through the narrow stone stairways, we could only imagine any one of them wedging themselves in like a sweaty, wheezing, moaning cork in a bottle and the staff having to call in International Rescue to cut their way in and liberate them.
The view, however, was entirely worthwhile
Having rattled our way back down we filled the afternoon with a rather appalling pub lunch (one of the few bad meals so far, believe it or not) then some more wandering, then coffee and cake. We ended another long day with more travels on tubes, beer by the river
and a rather nice meal at a spot called Vinopolis, where we farewelled some of our sightseeing friends with yet another beverage. Thus ended that day with us on our balcony drinking cider and resting aching legs and feet.
P.s. For those distressed by a distinct lack of obscure music references and general tomfoolery, FEAR NOT GENTLE SOULS... These services will resume as normal shortly.
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