Round the monopoly board.

It's easy to see why people fall in love with London. There's not much to dislike about it (except perhaps the exchange rate for Aussies). For such a huge city it's remarkably easy to get around and most areas are walkable- and it feels like we've walked an awful lot of them in 3 days!

On Saturday we started off at the Camden Markets, just a couple of stops down the tube from our hotel in Euston. This market starts in the street but then turns into a tardis down a rabbit hole with multi levels and corridors and back lanes of tiny little shops selling just about anything you can think of. We bought a bag full of nothing in particular before we found a way out of the maze, just near where a couple of boats were negotiating the lock on a canal. This was a vaguely fascinating procedure to watch from the bridge, spoilt only by the amount of people who were casually throwing their rubbish into the canal while we stood there!

From Camden it was back on the tube to Leicester Square to check out the day’s theatre offerings. Today was Taine’s choice and he settled on Cats.

We’ve been ticking off the names from the Monopoly board while we’ve been here and today was a bonanza. We are staying on Euston Rd and leave every day from King’s Cross station, effectively ticking off the pale blue when we pass Pentonville and the signs for the Angel Islington. On our visit to Buckingham palace we drove down Park Lane. Yellow is where the theatre tickets are at Coventry St and Leicester Square and we change trains at Piccadilly. Today we visited the red, the green and the orange. Trafalgar Square (bordered by The Strand, Pall Mall and Whitehall) was full of people carrying pillows. Apparently today was world pillow fight day. Who knew? But, viewed from Nelson’s Column it did make an interesting diversion.

Down the Strand to Convent Garden we stopped for hot chocolate and to pick up our Lion King tickets for next Tuesday, then around the Victoria Embankment to pick up the tube to Regent St and Oxford Circus for some shopping.

Circus was a very accurate description for Oxford St on Easter Saturday. It was a sea of humans. We were on a mission to find Taine some new jeans (he’s grown out of 2 pairs while we’ve been away!). We accomplished that task and managed to find him a new Swatch but we failed to find any Easter eggs.

After a 30 minute power break back at the hotel we returned to Argyll St for dinner and the show. Cats turned out to be an inspired choice. Since we’re in rehearsal to do this show at school next term Taine already knows the entire score and we have a heightened interest in the set and staging. The Palladium is a gorgeous, intimate theatre and our cut price tickets in the dress circle were as good as any in the house and included free face painting! It’s a perfect stage for Cats and allows everyone to get up close and personal with the cast. We loved the directorial interpretation of the story too, complete with a hipster, rapping Rum Tum Tugger. The hard part will be trying to get rid of the ‘ear worm’ tunes tomorrow.

A big day in London

We jumped on a double decker bus this morning and went to visit some of our London bucket list addresses. It’s pretty funny how much pleasure we get out of new forms of transport and the double decker was no exception. I think Taine would have been happy to sit in the bus all day so long as he could have the front seat on the top deck!

We went to visit the Queen Elizabeth today but she wasn't home. Her guards put on a good show though, as they changed places and marched through Buckingham Gate. The Prime Minister wasn't home either but we did talk to a lovely policewoman at 10 Downing St. She said David Cameron is probably out sussing alternative lodging in case the upcoming election doesn't go well for him.

There were thousands of people on Westminster Bridge so it was hard to get a good view of the houses of parliament and Westminster Abbey. We'll check back there another day. 

We thought the Eye would be too busy today but remarkably, after paying the extra for the fast track pass, we were in a gondola, high in the sky above London before we knew it. It was also very considerate of the clouds to ease up long enough for us to complete our rotation. The view of London from the Eye is similar to the view of Paris from the tip of the Eiffel Tower but not as pretty (mind you, London definitely makes up for this at ground level). It is fun to 'spotto' all the famous landmarks though and the bird's eye view helps to orient you to the city.

Exploring the area around Jubilee Park we stumbled upon a delicious food market at Southbank. The free samples were enough to stave off the lunchtime hunger pangs and we bought some amazing cookies and custard tarts ‘for ron’ and chips cooked in duck fat to nibble on while we walked to the bus stop and the Shakespeare Globe Theatre.

For a couple of Drama teachers this was the ultimate in travel tours. The guide was great and we not only enjoyed the opportunity to be in the theatre out of season (because it’s open air the season only runs April to October) but we also learnt a few things about Shakespearean theatre. The exhibition running at the moment was also excellent, with great insights into behind the scenes of the early plays.

From there we walked over yet another bridge (to be honest I was getting a bit foot sore and over the whole walking thing by then and despite Siri saying it wouldn’t rain so we hadn’t taken the umbrella, it was raining so this part of the day is a bit blurry).

Anyway, we ended up at St Paul’s Cathedral just as the Good Friday Liturgy was beginning. The cathedral is every bit as lovely as you imagine. It also has a tube station nearby, for which I was very grateful.

No evening activities tonight, except for a relatively satisfying salmon dinner at the nearby Irish pub.

We're off to London

Originally we’d intended to have 3 days in Yorkshire and another 3 further down near Cambridge, but with a neat little cottage available in Thirsk it made more sense to spend some significant time in the one place. That left us with a reasonable drive down to Luton, where, on the advice of my fellow Fodorites, we decided to drop the car off rather than risk driving in London.

Farewell to Thirsk

We started on the M1 but the stakes were too high for us. The speed limit is 70mph but I think that’s just the starting limit! We were doing 75 and everything sped by us, including little minis who passed us , weaving in and out of lanes as if we were standing still. It was like a high powered dodgem derby and when we could we slipped sideways to a quieter pace

A mid morning stop in Nottingham gave us a chance to check out Robin Hood territory. Nottingham is an interesting mixture of beautiful old  architecture and a building boom somewhere in the middle of the 20^th C where they’ve just decided to erect a lot of ugly brick boxes ( like some areas in Melbourne). There was a big fire burning somewhere downtown so traffic was at a snail’s pace. We took the opposite direction out of town and ended up on the road to Peterborough. This Peterborough is not a sleepy little sea side town like ours. It is big and busy so we pushed on looking for a smaller place to stop for a late lunch. We left the highway twice into towns about the size of Mortlake, looking for a café. No luck! Where do these people go for coffee?

Robin Hood (and photo bomber)

Low blood sugar does not make for happy travelers so in the interest of driver safety we finally relented and stopped at a Maccas. This was the worst McDonalds I have ever eaten in (and this is  lofty (un)praise because with 3 kids spread over 30 years I’ve spent time in quite a few). The bonus was that Taine picked up a Monopoly sheet so he can track our progress in London. He wasn’t impressed to learn we’re staying in the pale blue in Euston Road. ‘Mum, that’s only one step up from Old Kent Road!’

In Luton we did a quick recon of the car drop off and train station to plan our escape for the morning.  We had red wine and the last of the duty free Monkey Shoulder for dinner.

The train from Luton to London was brilliant. In under 40 minutes we were at St Pancras and our hotel , which is right across the road, was kind enough to let us check in early. We wasted no time picking up our Oyster cards and hopped on an Underground train from King’s Cross to Leicester Square in search of cheap theatre tickets. I’m sure there are hints for negotiating the myriad of ticket booths and choices (please pass them on if you have some). Unfortunately, Easter and mid term break isn’t the most likely time to score really cheap seats but we got a bargain price for Wicked.

Taine spied the M & M shop, four levels of chocolatey goodness and every bit as crowded as the one we visited in Times Square ,then we grabbed a coffee and people watched for an hour while we drank in the fact that we really are in London.

Back in Euston we wandered around the area to orient ourselves with possible eateries, delis etc. There’s nothing like getting off the main roads to get a feel for the local area. Two blocks back from Euston Rd and you can see why the real estate rates lowly on the Monopoly board. We passed a couple of schools and snooped through the (very high security) fences. It was after school care time. Fascinating to listen to the different accents and watch the different games the kids were playing.

After a mandatory rest time and a bath, we set off to the Victoria Apollo theatre for Wicked. An Easter service in progress at Westminster Cathedral was a quiet and reflective break from the peak hour holiday traffic raging amongst the building and road works at Victoria Station and a cup of noodles at Itsu provided a pre show dinner. I hope this fast food franchise takes off in Aus; it was delicious and full of vegetable goodness.

Westminster

The Apollo is a lovely old theatre. We were way up in the clouds at the back but with an unrestricted view, made even better by sitting behind small children. I saw Wicked in Melbourne a few years ago but it was the first viewing for Geoff and Taine and having just done The Wizard of Oz as our school show, Taine was able to ‘get’ all the cross script subtleties.

It’s such a wonderful story, we were feeling quite uplifted by the end. Best still, it was only a 10 minute trip back to the hotel, a far cry from the 3 hours plus that it usually takes us to get home from a stage show.