After walking from our hotel for about eight whirlwind hours on our first day in London, covering endless miles, from the west end to the east, our heads were filled with visions of sugar plums …
We began our journey by heading north through handsome residential neighborhoods of buff-sandstone apartments to Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey’s red-haired stepchild, before taking in the Buckingham Palace changing of the guard at 11, which by dumb luck, was exactly when we got there.
Manicured St. James Garden, with its ginormous sycamores and majestic Linden trees, shading the begging ducks, mute swans, and white-fronted geese, looked like something out of a Victorian fantasy.
The eerily empty Roman-ringed Horse Guard Palace was guarded by stone-faced helmeted soldiers in shiny black leather atop silver-wrapped horses with an attitude.
Trafalgar Square, crowned by the grey marbled National Gallery, was a total mob scene where Star Wars characters pimped like cartoon sentries for photos while magically levitating in the air.
With little or no difficulty, we managed to find the Tourist Deal gazebo in Charring Cross across from the historic Garrick Theater, where “Let It Be”, the untold story of the Beatles, was playing, and we patiently waited in the long line in the stifling basement of the large kiosk to replace our two London Passes that I left back at home like a dumb ass.
With our two new blue credit card London Passes in hand, we finally took a much-deserved break for a few cold San Miguels at the storied Garrick Pub; refreshed and invigorated, we used our handy-dandy, three day pass to check out the National Portrait Gallery where there was a fine Virginia Wolf exhibit and portraits of every British person of nobility that ever walked the earth, along with one of TS Eliot with a melting face.
Then we headed over to the Apple Market where we bought a fine framed painting of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the days of yore and a Celtic hip flask made of pewter.
We valiantly continued down the rabbit hole along wondrous Fleet Street, past the eye-popping, block-long Royal Courts of Justice, stopping at a yummy French Restaurant (Cafe Rouge) with open-air windows
overlooking St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tourist Information Center with its trippy silver winged building.
And then it was on to Monument Square in the “new” blue downtown section of London with its golden pineapple flame atop Christopher Wren’s white marble Fire of London Tower — its height reflecting the exact distance to the start of the terrible blaze in Pudding Lane in September 1666.
It was late afternoon and we passed hordes of dark-suited businessmen and women pounding beers after work in front of pubs that had been transformed into open-air beer gardens.
We had another few pints before heading over the white pedestrian Millennium Bridge across the murky-brown Thames.
Nearing the end of our long journey across the entire length of London by foot, we headed down along the bank-side stone pathway to the Tower of London where we caught the Boat Bus back to the Embankment near Big Ben and Parliament.
And finally, with very sore feet and tired eyes, we returned at a still-sunny nine o’clock to our hotel via the tree-lined Victoria Embankment guarded by stone-faced buildings and noisy pigeons and seagulls.
So here’s the thing: boat buses beat any other kind of public transportation hands down. And you can buy good beer on board there too!