A lot of London by foot

We spent a lot of time being tourist-types today and only scratched the surface. According to my iPhone I walked about 10 miles and coupled with the unusual warm weather I was beat when I got back to the hotel, the Intercontinental Park Lane, which is located in a wonderful area known as Mayfair. It is right in between Hyde Park and Green Park (the park  next to Buckingham Palace).

There are some great old monuments to wars past and I’ll throw up a picture or two. Speaking of Buckingham Palace I wandered through the park to see if Elizabeth and Phillip might invite me in for a pint but no such luck. They were doing the changing of the guard so that was pretty cool. I still would have liked to have that cold pint with the Queen though. I came a long way…..seems like the friendly thing to do.

 

Visited the Westminster Cathedral and the Westminster Abbey the picture on the right) along with Parliment and Big Ben and then circled back with a walk along the Thames River which cuts through town. The tourists are out in serious numbers this time of year wo we opted to cut through town on our way back and avoid “them” (as if I wasn’t contributing to the crowds). Anyway it was nice to get away from the normal attractions and see where the regular people hang their coats.

 

After catching a bit of a rest we headed to a neighborhood near the hotel called Sheperds Corner and had an absolutely fantastic dinner at a Turkish restaurant called “Sofra.” I think that means “dining table” in Turkish but don’t hold me to that. It was a wonderful meal though with lots of windows that were opened up. In the middle of dinner it rained.It was warm outside with a gentle breeze and added to the ambience. A very nice end to a very full day.