Sunday 12th April 2009

We woke up to a very grey Easter Sunday – there had been rain again during the night, but it seemed to have stopped for a while. We had the usual breakfast in the YHA cafeteria – there were many more people here than for the past couple of days and the queues for breakfast seemed endless. We had made it to the cafeteria before the big rush thank goodness, but the poor staff were pretty run off their feet.
After breakfast we had decided to take the bus and go over to a shopping centre called Surrey Quays where we had hoped to be able to find a shop that sold warm clothing for Deb. What fools we were – for some reason we thought the shops in London would be open on Easter Sunday – we arrived at the centre around 9.30am, and noticed that some of the shops appeared to be opening around 11.00am – so we went for a walk around the canals that run off the Thames on part of the Thames Walk that we had read about, it was quite interesting and filled in some time until 11.00am
We returned to the centre, to find quite a few more people there but no shops open. Closer examination revealed small signs in some of the shop windows that said the shop was closed for Easter Sunday – pity we hadn’t noticed it earlier.
We didn’t want to waste the day any further – although it wasn’t really wasted as we had quite an interesting walk around the suburb and river.
So we got back on another bus that said Waterloo, and decided to head in that direction and then decide what to do. As the bus wasn’t the usual one we took to Waterloo, it went via a different route, and we ended up going through West End and past the Old Vic theatre, etc. – we missed getting off at Waterloo, as we didn’t recognise it from another end.
Anyway we ended up at a place called Holborn. Luckily we had our underground map with us, and worked out where we could go, in order to see something interesting. A number of the underground lines were still not open due to track maintenance which made it quite challenging, but Deb worked out a route for us, and we caught a train to Bank. Here we went up to the road, found a coffee shop and had a toasted sandwich and coffee before heading off to go to the Tower Bridge Exhibition which we didn’t have time for yesterday.
We walked down to see The Monument – the memorial to the 1666 Great Fire of London, and took a number of photos of the area.
From there we walked towards the Tower of London again, but this time on a higher road which lead to another massive building called Trinity Square, where there was a lovely garden and memorial for seamen who have lost their lives at sea.
From there we walked around the area, and eventually got back onto the Tower Bridge, and then went to the Exhibition inside the Tower Bridge – this was fascinating, and once more many photographs were taken, we walked across both the East and West walkways, and then (fortunately for us) went down in the lift rather than climb the 212 steps back down to street level like the rest of the visitors.
Next we walked across the bridge to the section where they had the exhibit for the Engine Rooms of the bridge opening section – the old steam driven parts have been replaced by electricity driven machines. We found it all very interesting. We finished the tour around 3.30pm, by which time we were both pretty exhausted and decided that it was time to return to the YHA for a rest. On the way back to the bus stop, I picked up some food for tea from a little shop – the dinner at the YHA is pretty ordinary on the weekend, so we self catered with soup and sandwiches.
Tomorrow we have to vacate the YHA and re-locate to the hotel we are staying in for the start of the Globus Bus Tour – “Best of British Isles.”
Deb has been trying to find the hotel on the map of London, and it appears to be quite a distance from the heart of the City – probably so that when we head off in the bus on Tuesday morning, the bus won’t have to drive through the congestion areas during peak hour.
We will take a taxi to the hotel after we check out from the YHA, and will try to leave our luggage at the hotel, even if we can’t check in at that time. We haven’t decided what we will do with the rest of the day yet, but no doubt we will find somewhere to explore.