A Trip to London, May 14-18

This year's European adventure began with a flight via British Airways from Los Angeles to London. No screaming babies on the 9 hour flight this year but without a doubt the worst airline food ever!

We knew we were in for trouble on the ground, however, when the pilot cheerfully advised us on landing that it wasn't raining "for now." We were only there for the weekend but we managed to take in some of the city, despite the terrible weather. We arrived on Friday just before noon but had made dinner reservations before we left at a place Cathy Jo found mentioned repeatedly, the Giaconda Dining Room. It was pretty cloudy when we left our hotel for the 20 minute walk to the restaurant and we thought we wouldn't need our umbrellas. Wrong! The skies opened up about 5 minutes after we left. Luckily the walk took us down a major shopping street so we could duck in and buy some really cheap umbrellas. The dinner was excellent!

We stayed at a small hotel in the Kensington District, not far from the famous park and palace of Princess Diana fame. One of our first excursions was to the Saturday morning Borough Market, the oldest food market it London, begun in 1756. At the south end of the London Bridge under the railway line, it's stalls and small stores sell mostly organic produce, meat, fish, spices cheese and the like.



You also don't want to miss the tower of chocolate brownie!


Later we walked down alongside the Thames River to the Tate Modern Art Museum to take in a little culture. The activity of the day was a citywide "treasure" hunt for photographers. Museum staff had put together some sort of list and teams of photographers were to fan out across the city and take pics to illustrate the items. From the balcony above, we watched the teams plot their strategy.


Sunday was another cold blustery day. We visited the Kensington Palace and Gardens and visited a rooftop garden. I don't know what flamingos are doing in a rooftop garden in these northern climes but there they were.



Monday morning bright and early (well, early, anyway) we got a taxi ride to St. Pancras Station. It was time for our train ride to eastern France!